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The Sermon on the Mount

James Tissot, The Sermon on the Mount, illustration for 'The Life of Christ', circa 1886-96. Gouache on paperboard, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York.

After Tissot’s successful London career, he returned to France to begin a new series illustrating the New Testament in watercolor and gouache. He brought the same attention to detail to his watercolors that he had applied to his oil paintings of London society types. Historical accuracy was important to Tissot, and he made several expeditions to the Middle East to record the landscape, architecture, costumes, and customs of the Holy Land. The paintings are a wonderful mix of the Ottoman Empire and Tissot's imagined first-century Judea.

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James Tissot, The Sermon on the Mount. Gouache on paper, circa 1886.

A message usually delivered orally by a religious leader.

A broad, diverse group of nations ruled by the government of a single nation.

Associated with a deity; exhibiting religious importance; set apart from ordinary (i.e. "profane") things.

The southern kingdom of Judah.

A collection of first-century Jewish and early Christian writings that, along with the Old Testament, makes up the Christian Bible.

(adj.) Of or related to the empire founded by Turks at the turn of the 14th century C.E. and lasting into the early 20th century. (n.) One from that empire.

A collection of Jesus' moral sayings, including the Beatitudes and several parables, recorded in Matt 5-7.