I did a little reading, and some experts in the field of forensic anthropology took the skull of a 1 CE Jew, reconstructed it, and gave us the following:
Again, this is only an image of what some experts think a Jewish man contemporaneous to Jesus would have looked like. The discussion remains as to how much Jesus would have looked like this man. The inference that makes the most sense to me is that he would not have stood out in any extremely remarkable way. Most people assumed that he was the son of Joseph and Mary, a Nazarene, and left it at that. When he was arrested, Judas needed to point out to the soldiers who it was they were to arrest, so he likely did not have any features that a stranger could easily distinguish by torchlight (which may mean absolutely nothing as well).
Irrespective of what he looked like, it seems rather clear that the image of Jesus which we see in churches today was influenced by the Greco-Roman conception of diety. Here is a picture I took of a bust of Jupiter in the Vatican Museum:
Compare with the
Christus:
Note the hair and facial features especially. The main distinction, as far as I'm concerned, is that statues of Jupiter and Zeus are much more muscular and powerful than those of Christ, which comes as little surprise, given the conception of Christ as passive and willing to suffer all things.
And yes, they are both white, thanks to the medium by which they were sculpted, but can any of you recall having seen a bronze statue of Jesus?
I used to snicker a bit at the image of Christ, knowing that it was basically a modern iteration of Zeus. Then I read an article by an LDS painter, who wrote about what it was like to paint images of the Savior. He frankly admitted that he had no idea what he would have actually looked like, but also said that in the end, that doesn't matter. A painting or statue of Christ is not a
depiction, but a
reception, which means it is in part a conversation between the art and its viewer. If an particular image more closely corresponds to what a person has in mind when he conceives deity, it will speak to him with greater power and force.
So I don't mind if people depict Jesus as white or black or somewhere in between. In the end, maybe he did look just like that guy in the first picture. I don't happen to think that in this particular instance, the disconnect of reality and our modern conceptualization impairs the ability of contemporary depictions to communicate with the viewer.
For the record, I can't think of a single picture, painting, or statue that I actually like of Christ. They are an artists' expression of what the Savior is to THEM, and I don't begrudge them their right to so express their devotion. I just haven't seen one that fits particularly well with my own.