An Artistic Problem

I'm a big art snob. I feel I can be. If there's anything I have a legitimate reason to be uppity about, it's art. It can't be food...I'm no great connoisseur that's for derned sure (Arby's anyone?) and I am most definitely NOT a clothes snob (most of my wardrobe has come, electively, from DI) but I do know art. I worked in an art museum for 3 years, I studied art and humanities at BYU, I lived in Spain, and consequentially, at the Prado for 3 months and I have been to more art galleries and museums across the country and world than I have been to H&M...and that's saying something (K...maybe I'm a little bit of a clothes snob...)

The one area of art I've always struggled with is religious art. Most of it I think is crap. There, I said it. Even the most popular depictions of Christ make me want to close my eyes and sing Neil Diamond songs (for some reason...). It gets so bad sometimes that I find myself being REALLY irreverent when I'm in, say, a Deseret Book Store (the mothership of all bad religious art distributors).

I'm trying to get better, but the problem is, I now have a kid that I have to teach about Jesus and the only way to really do that is introducing him to pictures of Jesus...most of which I HATE. There are a few I love, like most anything by Minerva Teichert, and most of Carl Bloch's stuff. It's hard though, to find children's books with their paintings featured. 

I also hate (I'm using that word liberally in this post!) when I hear people talking to their kids and they say stuff like, "Don't be naughty, Jesus is listening..." and point to a pic of Christ they have in their house. Wo be unto the idolatrous! says me. 

So conundrums abound. I want my son to start learning about Christ and his teachings, but I have a really hard time showing him pictures of Christ. Anytime I do I find myself, almost by rote, saying, "now look here Eli, here is an artist's idea of what Christ would have looked like, although in Jewish tradition he would have had a longer beard, less of a flowy robe on, and would probably not be glowing...". 

I think I have a problem.....suggestions?