look closer...

so for the rest of the story for the day that was supposed to be spent at the zoo...

something really impacted me today. we looked at an enormous amount of history and famous pieces of art by artists such as picasso, van gogh, monet, mary cassett, georgia o'keefe, frank lloyd wright, etc. i walked around for two hours unaffected by millions of years of history and some of the best art man has created. i thought some of it was pretty or fascinating or original. but then one artist really caught my attention. after wandering through gallery after gallery, there stood in front of me two enormous paintings by a guy named sir edward coley burne-jones, who i had never heard of. the works are entitled "the king and the shepherd" and "the nativity." "the king and the shepherd" is a painting of two men, one obviously a king and one obviously a common person, each led by an angel. at the top of the painting is a latin phrase. "the nativity" is obviously a nativity scene with three angels standing next to a relaxing mary, who is holding infant Jesus. someone is kneeling beside mary. again, a latin phrase topped the painting off.

you can check the paintings for yourself.

here: http://www.cmoa.org/searchcollections/imageview.aspx?image=22620&irn=1003063

and here: http://www.cmoa.org/searchcollections/imageview.aspx?image=22684&irn=1003074

the description next to "the king and the shepherd" read, "The King and the Shepherd combines separate events in the story of the birth of Christ: the voyages of the magi and the shepherds to Bethlehem. The artist's introduction of angels leading each traveler by the hand is unusual, as is the single figure who represents each group. The pairings visually suggest the equality, in the face of divinity, between the wealthy king and the humble peasant. In the context of the enormous social inequalities rife in Victorian England, this message smacked of social and political radicalism. The Latin inscription is from the New Testament description of the journey of the shepherds: Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us (Luke 2:15)."

the description next to "the nativity" read, "Called The Nativity, its true subject is the redemption of mankind through cycles of birth, death, and rebirth exemplified by the life of Christ. The somber mood of the scene results not only from muted coloring and static figures, but also from many symbols of death: the crown of thorns, chalice, and urn; the shroudlike garments; and the draping of the manger reminiscent of a bier. The Latin inscription refers to the Resurrection: Because of the misery of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord."

wow! what hit me very suddenly (besides how amazing these pieces of art are) was that artists, good artists, aren't just creating pretty pictures. we walk into art galleries and treat the pieces that way, though. the average person only spends about one second looking at a piece of art. we say things like, "oh, that one is pretty" or "that one is boring." the artists have something for us to see, though. they are creating beauty and truth and goodness in the deepest sense. they are giving the world a visual image for things that maybe the world will never see in a physical sense but are really there. they are sharing experiences that cannot be expressed in words. they are giving us something that we can be moved by. they are crying out for the poor and lonely and oppressed. in the case of these paintings, they are shedding light on and (dare I say) giving an image to an invisible God. burne-jones commented, "I mean by a picture, a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be, in a light better than any light that ever shone, in a land no one can define or remember-only desire." i don't think that what he has shown us is simply a "romantic dream of something that never was, never will be..." he has shown us a piece of who Christ was for us.

it is no wonder that so many writers, especially theologians, have been inspired by art. take for instance, j.r.r. tolkien, whose works were inspired by some of burne-jones' pieces. how about henri nouwen, who wrote a riveting book on the prodigal son based on rembrandt's painting? maybe more astounding were the works of karl barth, who had a painting called "the crucifixion" by matthias grunewald hanging above his desk in his study. this painting still resides over his desk, which is now in the library at pts!

you can see this painting here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mathis_Gothart_Grünewald_022.jpg

i wanted to share with you something that i read today about barth and this painting. it is from the pittsburgh theological's spring 2006 publication of panorama. "For that entire 50 years, a reproduction of Matthias Grünewald’s painting The Crucifixion hung above Barth’s desk. That reproduction still hangs above his desk, in the Barbour Library. Parallel to his love for Mozart’s music, Barth found in this graphic painting by Grünewald an especially telling symbol of his faith and theological impulses. Just two months before his death, Barth wrote, 'You can find my dogmatic theses recapitulated in all their strength and weakness in the texts of the Mozart masses. I might add that as a visual aid Grünewald’s picture of the passion has hung before me for the last 50 years'... If you spend time gazing at Grünewald’s Crucifixion, you will discover a wealth of symbolic reminders of the gospel stories of Christ’s agony. There is the darkened sky and the traditional image of a Lamb embracing a cross. There is the chalice of the Eucharist receiving the blood as it drips from the Lamb. And there is the customary mourning “trinity” of Mary, Mary Magdalene, and John. The agony of Christ is portrayed graphically, as his bowed head wears a crown of thorns, his fingers are stretched out in pain and shock, and his bleeding hands and feet are nailed to the cross. Even the cross itself shows the marks of this tragedy: the crossbar is bent as if to say that the world’s sin, carried by the Christ, weighs down upon it. Looking at Grünewald’s painting, the words of Psalm 22:14-15 come to mind: 'I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.' Barth’s interest in this painting focused on the figure to the right of the cross, John the Baptist. He is portrayed pointing towards the Crucified One. To assure that no one misunderstand his (or John’s) intent, Grünewald paints the relative sizes of Jesus’ and John’s bodies to correlate with the message behind John’s arm: 'He must increase, but I must decrease' (John 3:30). In Barth’s writings, there are some 51 primary references to the Isenheim painting. Occasionally, he refers to different scenes in the Altarpiece, but most of his comments focus on the crucifixion and John the Baptist’s relation to it. Barth seems to have been intrigued by John’s hand. It points directly at the wound in Christ’s side, from which issues a stream of bright red blood. In a 1920 lecture, Barth said, 'We think of John the Baptist in Grünewald’s painting of the crucifixion, with his strangely pointing hand. It is this hand which is in evidence in the Bible.' Twelve years later in the Church Dogmatics, Barth writes, 'In this connexion one might recall John the Baptist in Grünewald’s The Crucifixion, especially his prodigious index finger. Could anyone point away from himself more impressively and completely?' The point for Barth is precisely that John indicates Christ as the One to whom we should be directing our gaze. Barth’s stress on John’s pointing finger reveals the primary motif that fascinates him in this painting. John is a witness to the incarnate Lord. The Baptist, as the last and greatest of the prophets of the Old Testament, declines to glory in his own position. Rather, he sees himself purely as a pointer to the One who deserves all glory and praise. Even the orientation of John’s body in the painting carries the same message. The open stance of his feet, with one turned toward the Lord, and the other open to the viewer, almost beckons us to gaze at John’s body. But the angle of his body, in turn, causes our gaze as it were to shift from John to the One at the center. As Barth writes, 'Shall we dare turn our eyes in the direction of the pointing hand of Grünewald’s John? We know whither it points. It points to Christ. But to Christ the crucified, we must immediately add. That is your direction, says the hand.' John’s only purpose, according to Barth (but also according to the Gospels and according to Grünewald), is to serve as a witness to Jesus, the Crucified Lord of Glory. Barth sees even more here: 'This is what the Fourth Evangelist wanted to say about this John, and therefore about another John, and therefore quite unmistakably about every ‘John.''"

you can see the rest of the article and publication here: http://www.pts.edu/archive/spring2006.pdf.

how amazing is it that one of the most prolific christian writers of our time wrote volumes of books partly due to one pointing finger in a painting? maybe God is shining through art. i don't think you need to know the first thing about art to discover this. it just takes the time to slow down and look closer. i think i will spend a little more time and pay a little better attention next time i am in the art gallery.

cheers,
jw