Fear of sleeping Jesus on Bruges bench

brugge - A passer-by in Bruges alerted the police on Tuesday evening when he thought he was seeing a snowman who had been snowbound and perhaps already deadly frozen on a bank in the Belgian city.

The attendants could reassure him after a short inspection. It was the artwork 'Homeless Jesus' by the Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz.

The bronze work of art depicts a sleeping figure on a couch under a blanket. To 'cross wounds' on the bare feet that sticking under the blanket is to see that it is about Jesus.

'The picture is also just there, so a lot of people in Bruges do not know it yet', according to a spokesman for the Bruges police at VTM Nieuws.

For the artist, the confusion is a sign that his work has been successful. 'I hope that people initially think 'there is a homeless person', and only then realize that it is an image,' he said earlier. There are casts of Homeless Jesus in other cities in the world.