Above is a painting of "Jesus" I came across on the Internet. To me (and admittedly I'm a Cat Stevens fan), "Jesus" looks too much like "The Cat" did, before he got old and became a Muslim (see photo below.)
To "illustrate" (pardon the pun) my point, I retouched the "Jesus" painting for only 30 seconds (below.)
In my artistic opinion, all you'd have to do is change the style and color on the hair of "Jesus" and you'd have the Moonshadow Man.
But whether you agree with me or not about that resemblance I see, it underscores why God doesn't want us to make visual representations of our Lord (although I don't judge anyone who's done it because I have done it MYSELF, in the past.) Artists will ALWAYS try to depict Jesus as they THINK He looked or even WISHED He looked. And though Scripture indicates Jesus was ORDINARY looking, have you ever seen a painting of Jesus where He looks......ordinary??
HEREIN LIES THE DILEMMA FOR THE ARTIST WHO SEEKS TO REVERENTLY "CAPTURE" JESUS. The Bible teaches He was ordinary to LOOK at but yet He spoke and acted in such a way and did miracles unlike ANY ordinary man who ever lived!! How do you capture such an incredible paradox in a painting, statue or drawing?? How do you resist making Him look like He is one color or another, as if maybe He was only the Savior if ONE group of people??
Jesus is GOD IN THE FLESH but you can't convey His GODHOOD in a mere work of art!! The Bible says that through HIM all things were created, and we are made in HIS image. But if we can create Him in OUR image, or retouch depictions of "Jesus" so easily, isn't this a good reason not to make images of Him in the FIRST place??
THESE things, I believe, give us clues as to why God says we aren't to make "graven images." And once more, though I've done drawings of Jesus MYSELF in the past (never again, after seeing the painting above, however), paintings and sketches of "Jesus" are included in the "graven images" prohibition, in my opinion.
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