The art of evangelization.

"My only ambition is to be able one day to paint Christ so movingly that those who see him will be converted."

Who had such a wild dream? Michelangelo? Fra Angelico? Salvador Dali? Good guesses, but wrong. The answer: Georges Rouault. But who's he?

Born in Paris in 1871, the son of a cabinetmaker and grandson of an art collector, Rouault initially restored medieval stained glass windows, including some from France's famed Chartres Cathedral. He also became a printmaker, ceramicist, set designer, costume designer, and painter. His early experience with stained glass can be seen in all his work.

One might expect to find a lot of Rouault's art in churches. But he only received one commission from a church, for three stained glass windows in Assy, France. Rouault, an ardent Catholic, gravitated toward dejected prostitutes, tragic clowns, and pitiless judges as frequent subjects of his art.

So where is this picture of Christ, intended to convert the world? Perhaps he dreamed one or more of his paintings on the Passion of Christ produced in the 1930s--Christ Mocked by Soldiers, The Holy Face, or Christ and the High Priest--would convert the world. None are in churches.

Then again, maybe Rouault had hoped that one or more of his Miserere et Guerre series would turn the world to Christ. This series of 58 engravings based on the Passion and death of Christ, executed in somber gray and black in his unmistakable stained glass motif, expresses his understanding of redemptive suffering.

"Rouault stresses the humanity of Jesus in contrast to the shocking inhumanity of his persecutors. So great is the emotional power of this work that it must be reckoned not only an important artistic achievement but as one of the great Christological statements of the century," writes Robert Ellsberg in All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time (Crossroad).

Recently there has been a bit of a Rouault renaissance. An exhibition of his Miserere et Guerre series has traveled from New York's Museum of Biblical Art to Chicago's Loyola University Museum of Art this year. Last November some of Rouault's paintings fetched prices between $20,000 and $90,000. Too bad churches with financial constraints don't have a few Rouault works.

Rouault's concept of conversion might be a bit dated for a post-Vatican II church that recognizes truths in other religions and for a culture that embraces pluralism. Nonetheless his artistic output is deeply haunting and challenges a world still filled with many atrocities. Rouault's art is a profound call to prayer, especially this February, the 49th anniversary of his death.

PETER GILMOUR ([e-mail]) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.