Why these four Italian paintings?

In the United States November 30th, 2015 a Manhattan man of Hebrew and African descent filed a lawsuit "to get white (Aryan) Jesus art taken down" from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, newspapers report. The paintings subject to the lawsuit are four Italian masterpieces: 1. “The Holy Family with Angels” by Sebastiano Ricci, 2.“The Resurrection” by Perugino, 3. “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” by Jacopo Tintoretto and 4. “The Crucifixion” by Francesco Granacci. These paintings are collectively related as“Racist Artworks”. The consequence of such a view was the man suffering from 'personal stress'. The reason is that Jesus is not faithful to his original race features, "black hair like wool and skin of bronze color". On the contrary, Jesus is painted as a blond-haired man.

The question is: why these Italian Renaissance paintings? After all, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is full of Italian religious paintings, which depict Christ as a white man. Actually, Christ is painted as a white man in Flemish, Spanish, German and French art. Apparently, there's nothing different about them from the other religious paintings in the museum. What do these particular paintings have in common?

Important notice: numbers refer to the original list of the Italian works of art that were mentioned in the man's complaint.

2.“The Resurrection” by Perugino (Italian, Città della Pieve, active by 1469–died 1523 Fontignano), 1502, tempera on wood, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

3. “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” by Jacopo Tintoretto  (Jacopo Robusti) (Italian, Venice 1519–1594 Venice), oil on canvas, circa 1545-1550, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

4. “The Crucifixion” by Francesco Granacci (Francesco di Andrea di Marco) (Italian, Villamagna 1469–1543 Florence), tempera and gold on wood, circa 1510, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

It looks like the common feature in the above Italian Renaissance paintings confirms Christ as a blond-haired white man. In addition to the three Italian Renaissance paintings by Perugino, Tintoretto, and Granacci, the fourth painting is a Baroque painting of a lovely Baby Jesus by Sebastiano Ricci. Here Baby Jesus has curly blond hair. That's what we see when we think of angels in Italy: a chubby baby with blond hair. 

1. “The Holy Family with Angels” by Sebastiano Ricci (Italian, Belluno 1659–1734 Venice), circa 1700, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Regarding the rest of the paintings, for sure it was in use in the Italian Renaissance to depict people with blond hair as it was a conventional feature for nobility. Indeed in real life noblewomen dyed their hair blond, which was a status symbol for the aristocracy. The only woman thought out with brown hair in paintings is the Virgin Mary. She is rarely blond-haired.

Another important piece of information is that these paintings are located in sections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that are dedicated to Italian Art. The painting by Sebastiano Ricci is on view in Gallery 619 called 'Venetian View Painting' and part of the general collection of 'European Paintings' to which the rest of the paintings belong, respectively: Perugino (Gallery 603:
Filippo Lippi to Botticelli), Tintoretto (Gallery 607: Venetian Sixteenth-century Painting), and Granacci (Gallery 609: Central Italian Painting of the High Renaissance).

For more information about the above paintings, visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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