In the early 1960s, artist Millard Sheets was commissioned to create a mural large enough to cover the south face of the Hesburgh Library on the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana. The work had to be visible from the football stadium and have a theme of saints and scholars throughout the ages. "As the composition evolved, the figure of Christ the Teacher was developed with arms raised in what has become known as the "touchdown" gesture" (Stevenson). "Millard Sheets, as one of the founding members of the "California Scene Painters," exerted a lasting influence upon subsequent generations of Western painters. He and the small group of painters who worked in California during the 1930s and 1940s developed a new style of watercolor painting that was at the forefront of the American watercolor movement of the time"(Papers).
             Since the mural is on the campus of one of the country's most storied learning institutions, the "processional of a never-ending line of great scholars, thinkers, and teachers – saints that represented the best that man has recorded, which are found represented in a library" (Stevenson). As you are looking at the mural, Jesus, with a large halo, is located in the center at the top of the piece so that it will not be mistaken that he is "the great teacher"(Stevenson). He is approximately three times larger than any other figure in the mural, signifying his importance. Surrounding Christ, below his raised arms, on the top half of the mural are the disciples, all looking up at the Lord, their teacher. Across the center of the mural, is a large group of scholarly men, fifteen total, dressed in clothes from ancient Greek and Roman times through the Medieval period. Several of these men appear to be looking up at Jesus while others appear to be teaching the rest of the men.
             Along the bottom of the mural, there are what appear to be three men of royalty, two holding staffs and one of them holds what ...