The New Iconography of Christ and the Changes in Depiction of the Jews in High and Late Middle Ages

Major changes in the Christian piety of High Middle Ages are not reflected only in the humanizing tendencies in the representation of the Saviour Jesus Christ, rendered as Man of Sorrows or Ecce Homo, but directly or indirectly influenced a wide range of new iconographic subjects. One of the specific issues within the context of great number of changes that actually shook the whole Europe certainly is the relation to the mother religion – Judaism and its living representatives – contemporary Jews. The article sets out the inversely proportioned relation between the two topics: with the humanization of Jesus Christ rises the estrangement from the Jews.