Ostentatio genitalium

Ostentatio genitalium was a tendency opposite to the Byzantine practice of depicting a sexless Jesus (with flattened abdomen covered by veils), with first examples starting around 1260, gaining popularity in the Renaissance, and tapering off in the seventeenth century.

Historically, the ostentatio genitalium is interpreted as an expression of the greatest possible self-humiliation of God assuming a mortal form, that, in words of Steinberg was "delivered from sin and shame".

[2] The wider circle of corresponding representations includes portraits with the circumcision of Jesus, although in these Renaissance paintings Christ's genitals are often covered (e.g. by a hand of Mary).

The emphasis and simultaneous concealment of sexual characteristics is intended to indicate the fertility of Jesus, which, however, is not reflected in bodily but in spiritual descendants.

In discussion with Augustine of Hippo, Steinberg states the paradoxical atonement for the Fall of Man in ostentatio genitalium: it creates an "erection-resurrection equation", which makes the viewers understand the holy mystery of "mortified-vivified flesh".