DETROIT -- Seventh-century Dutch master Rembrandt was revolutionary in how he portrayed Jesus Christ in his paintings, according to artwork and information on exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Western artists prior to Rembrandt invariably depicted Jesus as either a heroic or a severely suffering figure with northern European features, such as blonde hair and blue eyes, and the body of a Greek god, according to visitors' guides to Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus.

But Rembrandt, whose full name was Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, pioneered depictions of Jesus, who lived his entire life in Israel, as a Middle Easterner with dark hair and olive complexion. The artist most likely was influenced by his surroundings, having moved in 1631 from his hometown of Leiden, The Netherlands, where he was born in 1606, to the bustling city of Amsterdam, where he bought a three-story house in the city's vibrant Jewish Quarter.

Around 1640, Rembrandt began painting Jesus as a young Jewish man with Middle Eastern features, apparently using Sephardic Jews in his neighborhood as models.

Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus is the largest exhibit to date of the Dutch master's works that focuses on his images of Jesus, and includes every medium in which Rembrandt worked -- paintings, prints, and drawings. In fact, Rembrandt used three distinct print techniques -- drypoint, engraving, and etching -- to create a single work that is a highlight of the exhibit, The Hundred Guilder Print, depicting Jesus preaching to a crowd. An exhibit audio guide calls it "absolutely one of the masterpieces of Rembrandt's art" and "an incredibly important watershed in the history of European print-making."

The show includes varied views by Rembrandt of the story of Jesus at Emmaus, where Christ appeared to two disciples after his Resurrection. Among the works is Supper at Emmaus, hailed as one of Rembrandt's greatest paintings, which is being displayed in the United States for the first time in 75 years. In one notable Emmaus drawing, Jesus is shown in the process of vanishing from his disciples' sight, with Rembrandt depicting a heavenly glow in the drawing and a focus on the disciples' startled looks.

"Rembrandt spent nearly as much artistic energy thinking about how to represent the responses of those around Jesus as he did on Jesus himself," the exhibit explains. He "sought to make the invisible visible -- to represent the manifestation of faith as an internal force that moves believers to a range of reactions."

That goal was achieved, according to Vincent van Gogh, who counted Rembrandt as a major influence and said, "Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language."

Although Rembrandt was renowned for his biblical paintings, very little is known about his personal spirituality aside from the fact that he was a Protestant Christian. He did not outwardly conform to a particular church and left no documents describing his beliefs.

The exhibit opened at the Louvre in Paris and was featured at the Philadelphia Museum of Art before coming to Detroit, where it has drawn a total of 85,000 visitors since it opened in November.

Many of the timed ticket slots are selling out and although the DIA has extended its hours for the final week, an extension beyond Feb. 12 is not possible because of contracts with more than 30 lenders, a museum spokesman said.

First Published February 4, 2012, 6:45 a.m.