Art: Drawing Conclusions

I saw one of the scariest movies of all time in the summer of 1975. Instead of English teachers serenely lecturing about “man vs. nature blah, blah, blah,” all they need say is “Go see Jaws.” My nerves were shattered—that suspense, that relentlessness, that feeling of utter helplessness, that MUSIC! If someone had merely tapped me on the shoulder as I was leaving the theater I would have run screaming into the parking lot.

About 75 years before, people had the same reaction to a painting. We find that almost laughable today, but “talking pictures” only came about in the 1920’s. Before that, writers and artists commanded the realm of the imagination, and folks were entertained, informed, provoked, taught, and transported through literature and the arts. People would stand before a painting in a museum astonished and mesmerized, pondering its import, arguing over its meaning. And they certainly reacted that way to one of Winslow Homer’s paintings entitled The Gulf Stream, which he painted in 1899.

People clutched their throats in front of this 28” by 49” image of a black man in a wrecked boat, surrounded by sharks, with a waterspout in the distance and a rescue ship too far in the background to be of any help. This horrifying spectacle shocked and upset folks, and Homer, aware of the fuss that was generated, wrote this about the plight of the sailor: “The boat and sharks are outside matters; matters of very little consequence—they have been blown out to sea by a hurricane. You can tell the ladies that the unfortunate Negro who is now so dazed and parboiled will be rescued and returned to his friends and home and ever after live happily…” And the people all said, “Yeah, right. This guy is history.” One critic who studied the painting a long time decided that:

The important point of this story is the man’s distance from a shore or even a safe place. The man is alive, but not for long. The picture is designed like a big trap ready to close. On one side of the trap are the sharks, and on the other side is the waterspout. The man has not lost the battle but does not even have any strength left to call for help from the other ship. Even if he escapes these dangers around him, he will probably starve for lack of food and water.

And there are critics today who also believe that the man is meant to die. They feel that because Homer painted this soon after the death of his parents, he was reflecting upon the “approaching inevitability of life’s end.” The boat’s open hatch resembles a tomb, the loosely draped sail symbolizes a shroud. A black cross stands behind the broken mast, the latter referring, perhaps, to the broken columns which sometimes appear in funerary paintings. Homer’s sunny explanation of the sailor’s happy ending is obviously a sarcastic response to the flighty nerves of little old ladies.

Perhaps. Another critic, however, takes Homer at his word. (But, you say, how could the man possibly escape a horrible fate? He’s either going to be eaten by sharks, be flipped over by a waterspout, be starved to death, or die of thirst!) Look at the man. Does he look desperate? Is he cringing from the sharks? Is he fearfully watching the course of the waterspout? Is he on his knees, hands clasped, supplicating heavenward? No. His body is relaxed, and he’s resting on one elbow, looking with determination to the side. The type of boat he sails, a “smack boat sloop,” is the clue. Sailors of these boats were known for their strength and courage, as they could sail night and day in any kind of conditions, could smell bad weather, and were adept at the trickiest kinds of navigation. This boat is holding fast—though it is tipping, its line is above the water. That ropey-looking stuff next to the sailor is sugar cane, a source of food and water. And there are flying fish skimming gracefully over the water which can be caught and eaten. The ominous color in the water? Red seaweed floating in from the Gulf of Mexico.

Whatever the outcome, Homer certainly loaded his painting with terrifying circumstances, and that stomach-churning Jaws music is the perfect background sound effect. If the 19^th century had had cinematography, this freeze-frame would have made a great movie poster.

You can see The Gulf Stream in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Maybe on vacation. And if you’re going to the beach, hope you enjoy the water…

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Father’s Day is approaching. Do you have a picture of your dad in your wallet? You definitely do if you have a dollar bill. Take a look—right there is the most famous portrait of the most famous president America has ever had, a man dubbed “Father of His Country” when he was only 46 years old. (And if you turn your dollar over, you’ll see homage to another Father—one whom our country’s Father most definitely honored.)

How differently our country would have turned out were it not for George Washington. The only president to receive 100% of electoral votes, he chose the title of “Mr. President” over “Your Majesty,” refusing the trappings of monarchy and limiting his presidential terms to two. Because of the extreme adulation of Washington by his countrymen, artists came from all over America and Europe to paint his portrait. A Russian visitor to the United States, Paul Svinin, wrote in his A Picturesque Voyage to North America that “every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home, just as we have images of God’s saints.” Svinin was speaking of icons, something that Americans would have gasped at—although that is exactly what Gilbert Stuart’s painting became: the most popular and revered image in the land.

How ironic that an honorable hero of unimpeachable integrity should be painted by the likes of an undisciplined, immoderate rogue like Stuart. Born in 1755 in Rhode Island, he was raised in poverty, the son of a Scottish snuff grinder. Having the aptitude to paint, he sailed to London before the Revolution and studied under his compatriot Benjamin West, where his brilliant facility for portrait painting surfaced. Unfortunately, so did his irresponsible addictions to liquor and snuff, and his accumulated debts forced him to flee from his creditors—first to Ireland and then back to the United States where, at age 37, he settled down to become the country’s pre-eminent portrait painter.

This was the veritable age of portrait painting, and everyone who was anyone wanted to sit for Gilbert Stuart. As a friend told Dolly Madison, Stuart “is all the rage…he is almost worked to death!” Luckily, Stuart painted quickly, dashing off resemblances with deft strokes, unconcerned with background and fancy costumes. One critic mentioned that Stuart couldn’t paint “below the fifth button,” to which he replied that he “left such accessory paraphernalia to the tailor”! He had an easy, jovial manner, and his chatty nature and knack for small talk put sitters at ease. His most important sitter was resistant to such distractions, however, because of ill-fitting false teeth which caused much discomfort, and Stuart’s first portrait of Washington frustrated the artist.

He was glad to have another chance in 1796 when Martha Washington herself commissioned a portrait of her husband. The president travelled to Stuart’s old stone barn studio outside of Philadelphia and settled down to his customary pose—stiff and uncomfortable. Stuart steeled himself for another disappointing experience when, suddenly, a splendid thoroughbred galloped by the window, and Washington’s face came alive. Stuart pounced immediately, chatting about local horse races and neighboring farms, engaging the president in a most amiable conversation, all the while working as quickly as he could. What he captured that afternoon was the dignity, character, and spirit of that great man in the portrait familiar to every American. (Don’t forget the artist was a rogue, too. Shrewdly, he never did give the portrait to Mrs. Washington; as a source of quick income, he kept it in order to make over 70 highly sought after copies—-he called them his “hundred dollar bills”!)

So, on this Father’s Day, celebrate your dad. Then get out a dollar and think of the country’s Father. In this presidential election season, it is instructive to remember how Henry Lee, Revolutionary War comrade and father of General Robert E. Lee, eulogized George Washington:

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting…Correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence and virtue always felt his fostering hand. The purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues…Such was the man for whom our nation mourns.”

 Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Good mothers have the hardest job the world. Also the most rewarding, amusing, exhausting, entertaining, and relentless. Glowing sermons will be preached on Mother’s Day thanking them for all their many acts of sacrificial love and extolling their superlative virtues. Believe it—it’s all true.

The most painted subject in the world is that of a mother, Mary, who looks tenderly and pensively at her child. But her son Jesus is not an ordinary child, and our wondering about what it must have been like to raise him eludes us. We can imagine how he may have acted as a little boy, but we can never really know for sure. The business of raising ordinary little kids, however, is entirely knowable, and one painter who captured the familiar moments between mothers and children most candidly was an American lady on the cusp of a brilliant new artistic movement that changed the course of art history.

The Philadelphia teenager Mary Cassatt had to have been strong-willed and independently minded to want to become a serious artist. Why? Three big reasons—she was a female, she lived in the 19th century, and she lived in America. Young women in her day were encouraged to dabble at painting (flowers, mostly), and then to go on and get married and have a family. When the 16-year-old Mary told her father that she wanted to pursue a career in art, Mr. Cassatt thundered, “I’d rather see you dead!” (Note to fathers: do not move your children abroad to absorb European culture for five years if you don’t want them to be infected with crazy art notions.) Mary, as all Americans, also faced traveling to Europe for prolonged art instruction, because our art schools’ curricula could only go so far, and we had no great museums or cathedrals bulging with masterpieces for artists to study. Despite all this, Mary’s father relented and, after studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts in Philadelphia, she went to Europe in 1865 at age 21 to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

It just so happened that Mary’s strong will travelled across the ocean with her, and she eventually grew disgusted with the Parisian way of promoting art. Paintings were only shown at the Salon after being judged worthy by a jury of “experts,” and if artists didn’t follow the Traditional Rules of Art, then their works were not shown. Mary, whose early pieces were accepted by the Salon, soon found out that she’d rather risk having her paintings rejected rather than to stifle a new style that was emerging in her work. A style that she and a dedicated group of friends, including Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, were exploring despite fierce critical derision. The birth of this new movement was protracted and difficult, but the creative fruit from such determined labor was spectacular—the art movement which had been dubbed, scornfully, “Impressionism.” (Note to art critics: think twice before you give something the raspberry. Miss Cassatt persuaded her wealthy American friends to buy this new style, and, as a result, American museums are chock full of Impressionism. Parisian curators have been gnashing their teeth ever since.)

The dazzling effects of sunlight on objects; the quick, blurred strokes of the brush; and the casual subject matter of daily life were the innovative aspects of this new movement. Its artists, fascinated by the fleeting immediacy of such things as sailboats, gardens, and dancers, were also intrigued by Japanese woodblock prints which flooded Europe in the mid-1800’s. These prints’ bright colors, elevated perspective, and informal cropping provided rich pollination with Impressionism’s taste for contemporary life, and we can see these things in Mary Cassatt’s paintings.

One of them, The Bath, painted in 1891, reflects not only the colorful patterns and bird’s-eye perspective of the Japanese style, but also Impressionism’s everyday subject matter. A mother holds her daughter on her lap while she bathes her feet in a basin. She is absorbed in lovingly tending her child, and the little girl nestles comfortably in her mother’s embrace. This is not a portrait, but rather a quiet and intimate moment between a mother and a child; a child who knows, in a serenely unconscious way, that she is the center of this little universe. Miss Cassatt, who herself never married, observed her nieces and nephews closely, and recorded, without sentimentality or artifice, the sleepiness, the boredom, the bathing, and the cuddling that wove together the preciously ordinary days of mothers and children. What is revealed in her exquisite paintings is the gently fierce and absolute devotion of maternal love—a phenomenon that even God was privy to. (You probably need to go call your mother.)

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

April showers bring May flowers. And, apparently, groups of people thoroughly enchanted with garden parties!  No, wait, it’s just a typical scene from the soap opera archives of Greek mythology, painted by Sandro Botticelli. This 6’8” x 10’4” allegory of Spring (“Primavera” in Italian) and its companion piece Birth of Venus are two of the most popular blockbusters in Florence’s Uffizzi Gallery. Painted in 1482, they were also among the first large paintings devoted to mythological subject matter in 1000 years, a feat which points to the cultural climate of Renaissance Florence.

Who are the players in this mythical scene? In the center we see Venus, goddess of love and marriage, presiding over her garden and welcoming us to eternal Spring. The winged, blue man blowing in on the right is the West wind Zephyrus pursuing the anxious nymph Chloris, whom he seduces, marries, then turns into Flora, the goddess of flowers. Chloris spews the flowers and Flora, unconcerned with the drama taking place at her very elbow, strews them from her embroidered dress onto the grassy carpet. To the left of Venus are her attendants, the three Graces–Splendor, Mirth, and Good Cheer—daughters of Zeus who sing and dance for the gods and are the embodiment of grace and beauty. The youth on the edge is Mercury, messenger of the gods, raising his caduceus to dispel furtive little clouds impudent enough to invade Venus’ garden. Even more impudent is chubby little Cupid flying above his mother’s head, aiming a flaming arrow at one of the Graces. He is blindfolded, of course, because love is blind.

So, in this garden we see the physical love of Zephyrus and Chloris, and the unpredictable love of Cupid both tempered by the reason of Mercury and refined by the Graceful pleasures of life. Reigning over all is Venus, the sublime blend of these spiritual and natural loves and thus, the Human Ideal.

Did Botticelli cook up all these ideas himself? No, a group of very brainy guys in the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici did. And since Botticelli painted in the court of Lorenzo (a.k.a. “the Magnificent”), he got wind of these ideas. Humanism and Neoplatonism were hot topics in Renaissance Florence, and discussions were especially lively as to how pagan philosophies could be reconciled with the tenets of Christianity. Writers, poets, philosophers, and artists all participated in Lorenzo’s intellectual dinner parties, which is why one can look at Botticelli’s Venus and be reminded of his paintings of the Virgin Mary. In her garden, Venus raises her hand in an almost saintly benediction, and the roses in Flora’s grasp are both a symbol of Venus and an attribute of Mary. Look at Venus rising from the waves, and you’ll see the face of Botticelli’s beautiful Madonnas.

The Church had eyes to see also. Enter Savonarola, the Dominican monk who came to Florence in 1494 and preached fiery, brimstone sermons. In 1497 he presided over the Bonfire of the Vanities—an attempt to cleanse Florence of its decadence through the public burning of such things as pagan books, cosmetics, gaming tables, jewelry, and immoral art. As one critic has observed, Lorenzo de’ Medici strove to turn Florence into the New Athens, and Savonarola envisioned it as the New Jerusalem.

We don’t know if Botticelli became one of Savonarola’s followers and threw his paintings into the bonfire. We do know, however, that he stopped painting mythological subjects and returned to the Biblical narrative. Perhaps he was tired of the unusual alchemy required to merge two such disparate worlds. His art fell out of favor at the turn of the 16^th century, as the stars of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael became ascendant. But the elegant line and exquisite beauty of his paintings were rediscovered by 19^th century PreRaphaelites and 20^th century Art Nouveau, and he is now, by far, one of the most admired artists of the Renaissance.

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The title of this painting is not The DaVinci Code. The last name of the guy who painted it isn’t even DaVinci. This is The Last Supper by a man named Leonardo from the town of Vinci, a.k.a Leonardo da Vinci. And Mary Magdalene is not to be found anywhere in this painting dressed as a man OR a woman—that is the disciple John seated on Jesus’ right. Yes, we all know that Leonardo was an innovative, trail-blazing genius who may possibly have mused upon some intriguing theory concerning Biblical characters. But he was not some reckless madcap who would paint such nonsense on a 15’ x 29’ mural for any passing pope or inquisitor to come across. He went to Milan to find a job, not lose his head.

It was between 1495 and 1498 that Leonardo painted The Last Supper (as was common practice) for the monastic dining hall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church. This was the only commonality, however. Previously, artists had lined up Jesus and his disciples on one side of the table and Judas on the other, and if haloes were painted over their heads, then Judas would be depicted either with a black one or with none at all. But Leonardo, not wanting to rely on such formulaic clues, pursued a more challenging route. Writing that “the highest and most difficult aim of painting is to depict ‘the intention of a man’s soul’ through gestures and movements of the limbs,” he sought to present the disciples as separate and unique individuals through their expressions and movements.

How could he best do this? Being a meticulous planner, he decided that the way to reveal the disciples’ inner characters would be to show them suddenly caught off-guard with a shocking piece of news. The stage would best be set by depicting Jesus as just having uttered the words from Matthew 26:21 “…Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me,” which would create instant emotional tumult among his followers. Horror, consternation, disbelief, and grief sweep across the table as the disciples jump up, twist around, or throw up their hands, each according to his natural character. John, gentle and melancholy, turns away in sadness; Thomas, the doubter, plunges forward holding up a questioning finger; hot-headed Peter injudiciously grabs a knife; and Judas, clinging greedily to his bag of silver, pulls back in dark astonishment. All lines of perspective converge on the head of Jesus, the quiet, stable force in the center, who is “haloed” by the arch over the window and framed by its light. Leonardo’s stage set is complete. The Paschal lamb quietly confronts the darkest of sheep while bewilderment and emotional chaos swirl ignorantly around them.

What a vast, powerful painting for the Dominican monks to behold while silently eating their meals. Looking at the knife that Peter clutched, they would have thought about the servant in the garden whose ear Peter so impetuously cut…(“am I as intemperate as Peter?”) And seeing the knife pointing towards Bartholomew at the far left, they would have contemplated that disciple’s death by being flayed alive…(“am I faithful enough to endure martyrdom?”) Perhaps they wondered if the formerly greedy tax collector Matthew, standing third from the far right, was pointing knowingly at Judas because he recognized his own past sins…(“have I overcome my own vice as well?) Did these monks realize what a treasure was up there on the wall?

We are lucky today that the treasure even exists. It was mutilated by Napoleon’s soldiers, subjected to several restorations, nearly smashed to smithereens by the 1943 bombings, and carved at the bottom to accommodate an offending door. (Though recently I was startled to be reminded of the “anointing stone” where Jesus’ body was prepared for burial while gazing at that unfortunate door.) And just why, you may ask, does it look like Leonardo decided to paint The Last Supper with a can of Drano? Give me a moment to stop sobbing uncontrollably. It has to do with the dismal stuff of Greek tragedies where some promising, rising, young star is thrown down and stomped on by the gods for some Fatal Flaw. In Leonardo’s case, it was his deliberative, slow painting style which was ill-suited to the fast pace of fresco. “No problem,” said Mr. Renaissance Man, “I’ll just whip some new invention to fix that!” The results were disastrous—within twenty years his oil/tempera concoction, exacerbated by Milan’s humid climate, was already flaking off the wall. The most recent restoration was finished in 1999 and took nearly twenty years to complete. Parts of it will always be ghostly, but it will forever possess the undeniable power to reveal the intention of thirteen singular souls.

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I watch Animal Planet. I studied animal habitats in school. I know things lurk in every place on earth that ordinary citizens are terrified of. Wolves and bears. Sharks and jellyfish. Snakes and scorpions. Lions and tigers. Every conceivable living thing in The Jungle. Up and down the food chain, creatures are sneaking around, just waiting to pop out and scare you to death. (Snakes, mostly.) Mothers routinely scream at their children, “don’t get too close!,” “don’t touch that thing!,” “get away from that right now!” That’s why the subject matter of the painting The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks is sweetly fascinating, but totally absurd by human reckoning.

Hicks was born in Bucks County Pennsylvania in 1780, and his mother died when he was three. Raised by Quaker relatives, he was apprenticed as a signmaker and received only rudimentary art training. After a riotous, misspent youth, he became seriously ill at age 22 and recovered—miraculously, he felt—to become a Quaker minister. He loved to paint but was torn by the Quaker distrust of the profession: non-utilitarian art was suspect, painting was merely a human vanity, and portraits were especially prideful self-indulgence. But the Biblical account of Jesus’ return to earth to usher in a peaceable kingdom was considered a worthy subject by his church, and it became Hicks’ lifelong obsession. He painted over 60 paintings from Isaiah 11:6: “The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”

Hicks’ little children are stiff and doll-like, having the primitive look of stylized folk art. His farm animals, however, appear more natural because of his familiarity with them, having grown up on a farm; but to depict the wild animals, he had to consult sources such as Bewick’s The History of Quadrupeds and Westall’s The Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch. This may partially explain the odd appearance of the wild animals, but most probably they have strange stares because of Edward Hicks’ own inner turmoil. He warred with himself on several levels, including his love for “frivolous” painting, and his “sinful” versus “repentant” natures. His Kingdom paintings always included a lion, a leopard, and a cow to symbolize both the arrogant, tempestuous Hicks, and the obedient, faithful one, and he used animal “personality” types in his sermons to describe good folks (the gentle lamb, goat, and cow), and the wicked folks (the cruel leopard, arrogant lion, and ravenous wolf.)

As enigmatic as they are, Hicks’ children and animals represent a future of peace on earth. He also painted the representation of past peace by including a vignette on the left of William Penn’s peace treaty with the Delaware Indians, an event that was the source of much Quaker pride. Penn’s treaty was different from others in that it respected the Indians, viewing them as equals under God who deserved both payment for their lands and protection from injustice. But yet again, there is an undercurrent present. Not all Quakers were as honorable towards the Indians as Penn, and some had violated the treaty by cheating and stealing. Also, disputes disrupted the Quaker movement which tormented Hicks. Many of his Kingdom paintings show confusion, sadness, or desperation on the faces of his wild animals, and some of the later ones show a kind of defeat. Or perhaps it is serenity. Perhaps this sinner/painter/preacher found his own kind of peace at the end of his life.

In any case, it was as difficult for Edward Hicks to imagine perfect peace in the jungle as it is for most of us. How contrary to human experience to read in verse 8 that “the infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper’s nest.” It is trying to imagine the unimaginable, which is precisely what Paul talks about when he writes that eye has not seen, nor ear heard. The peaceable kingdom is a valentine of harmony and rest for future souls only; we can only daydream about such things—and remember to keep a sharp eye out for creepy-crawlies while tromping through the present-day woods.

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I have too much stuff. I’ve spent half my life collecting it, pitching it, labeling it, pruning it, and being exasperated by it. Occasionally I’ll scurry around in an organizing fit, moaning that my kids won’t know what to do with it when I die.

Egyptians had a different idea about death and their stuff. Dead folks were expected to lead normal lives in the afterlife, and in order to do that, they had to take their “grave goods” with them—jewelry, furniture, food, board games, clothes, even statues of servants. Pleasant paintings on tomb walls were crucial because scenes of hunting, dancing, and playing came to life in the next world. A person was painted as young, energetic, and “walking like an Egyptian” with all body parts clearly delineated, because what was painted was what you possessed in the afterlife. Your mummy was essential for moving around later, and, just for good measure, unbreakable sculptures were made of you in case your mummy fell apart. Artists and sculptors were highly revered in Egypt, because their skills helped to ensure an eternal paradise of beautiful pleasure. The ultimate art for death.

This view of the afterlife was certainly more engaging than the gloomy, dreary underworld that the ancient Greeks envisioned, but was much more risky. Any time the collection of earthly treasure is involved, thieves will emerge. Incredible riches were stored in the pyramids, which might as well have had neon signs on them lit up with the words “steal my stuff!” A staggering amount of grave goods have been plundered through the centuries, to say nothing of mummies themselves. Walk through any museum’s Egyptian wing and ponder this: the beautiful artifacts on display were not intended for our casual perusal, but were crafted for a very real person’s future in a sunny, abundant land called the Field of Reeds. Because we don’t believe that you can “take it with you,” we discount the idea that we’ve impoverished anyone by stealing their things. The least we can do is to think about the implications of museum holdings, and be aware that not all art is for art’s sake.

I’m just relieved that I don’t have to deal with a category of things labeled “for the afterlife.” How would you know what you’d grow tired of in eternity, or what you’d miss and say “why in the world didn’t I pack that?” I can see my death certificate now— cause of death: EXHAUSTION. I am most thankful to leave this world in a hearse, not a U-haul.

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Baby showers are festive little affairs.  Cakes are decorated with little plastic rattles.  Games are played involving scrambled-up baby words.  Cute little baby gifts are passed around.  Ladies laugh, chat, swap baby stories, and drink coffee during an afternoon’s   rite-of-passage.

Mary’s experience was completely and utterly different.  When her baby came, its Father sent out fabulous invitations—-blazing, fearsome angels, and a blindingly brilliant star.  The first group of guests was not family and friends, but rather shepherds working the night shift on a nearby hill.  Very lowly shepherds who possessed no gifts except the proud knowledge that one of their own kind had killed a giant, saved his people, and become King David.  Or that even long before that, one of their own kind had defied a pharaoh, saved his people, and become Moses the Lawgiver.  Now they gazed at the mightiest one ever of their kind-THE Good Shepherd, who would save his people once and for all.

The second set of honored guests, unlike the shepherds, came from a great distance, were of learned and regal bearing, and brought costly, if peculiar, gifts.  They were the “three kings,” the scholarly magi who studied the heavens and came to worship a king, also one of their own kind.  THE King of Kings who, unbeknownst to them, came down from that very heaven they had studied, and who created the very star they had followed.  Albrecht Altdorfer’s beautiful 16^th century painting shows that star, along with the splendid robes and gifts of the visitors.

Who were these magi?  The Bible gives only hints, but Bede the Venerable sketched out a fuller idea in the 8^th century:  Melchior was an old man with a long, white beard who offered gold, Gaspar was the younger man who gave frankincense, and Balthasar was the black man who presented myrrh.  Gold was the gift for kings, Jesus being in the line of King David and heir to the throne of Heaven; frankincense was used in ceremonies of worship, Jesus being our High Priest and Intercessor; and myrrh was a spice for burial, Jesus being the Lamb that suffered and was slain.  Three kings, three distinct ages, three continents.  This is Epiphany:  the revelation of God to mankind in the person of Jesus Christ to ALL people!  

But grace does not go unchallenged:  The magi had to flee the country; King Herod raged against the children; and the holy family was forced to journey to Egypt.  Egypt, that land where another child, sent down the Nile in a pitch basket to escape a murderous king, had risen up to deliver his people. A vast, quiet monastery of a land where Mary could ponder shepherds, kings, angels, and strange baby gifts.  Perhaps Egypt was God’s gift to her, a gift of solitude where the epiphanies of “illuminating discovery” could come to her, and she could meditate on the “intuitive perception of the meaning of something.”

The twelfth day of Christmas is January 6^th, the Feast of Epiphany.  It is also the beginning of a new year. Perhaps a worthy resolution would be to seek some solitude where epiphanies are apt to appear.   

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Christmas can be SUCH a commotion-cooking, decorating, shopping, travelling, eating, etc., etc. It can also be a peaceful, faith-filled, holy time.

Two opposites, kind of like the 2 monks who collaborated in 1445 on a nativity painting in the National Gallery of Art entitled “The Adoration of the Magi.”Fra Angelico, the “angelic painter,” was a devoted monk of pious character who approached his art with prayer and reverence. Fra Filippo Lippi, a rambunctious orphan who was ill-suited to be raised in a monastery, approached life quite differently-he seems to have indulged in various misdemeanors which culminated in the illicit love affair with a nun, and only the intervention of the powerful Medici family prevented his being punished on the rack. Two strange bedfellows, indeed, to have produced such a beautiful masterpiece! A masterpiece depicting both the peace and the commotion of the Christmas season.

The angels told the shepherds of “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,” and it seems that in this painting all those people decided at the very same minute to go visit Jesus. A huge parade of folks marches up the hill and down around the road and through the archway toward the stable. Joseph, humbly barefoot and dressed in his symbolic golden robes, greets one of the magi. Mary, dressed in her heavenly blue, holds the Christ child, who clutches a pomegranate full of the seeds representing the souls of believers. A dog, symbolic of fidelity, guards the newborn King. A peacock, perching over the stable and displaying the all-seeing eyes of the Church, represents immortality, because it was thought that its flesh never decayed. Shepherds gesticulate toward the stable, while a fellow dressed in red throws up his hands at the sight of the star. (Or is it at the sight of those scantily-clad men on the ledge? Who are those guys? We’re not sure, but they could be the product of Renaissance artists’ fascination with newly-discovered classical statues.) All in all, it is quite a gala event by anybody’s standards.

And you think perhaps your holidays are a little frantic? Ponder the scene: unending crowds, barnyard animals, exotic kings to entertain, oddly-behaving men, screeching peacocks. (And all with no food in sight.) Fra Lippo Lippi painted much of this colorful chaos; Fra Angelico wisely concentrated on the serene countenance of Mary. She knew that the Child she held close to her heart would be the author of unimaginable events in her life. And her calm peacefulness derives precisely from this close holding. What can become a jumble of exhausting events in our lives is diminishable. What we need do, like Mary, is to concentrate. Not on the multitudes of distracting events, but, instead, on the One Event.

Copyright 2008 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I was strolling through a store this Fall enjoying the pumpkins, scarecrows, and black cats on display, when I innocently turned a corner and was shocked by a whole aisle of glittery Christmas decorations. I stood there stupefied—didn’t these people know that “to everything there is a season, and you don’t go jumbling them all up”? I was not ready that day to have Christmas sprung on me like some noisy jack-in-the-box.

The first announcement of Christmas 2000 years ago was just as unexpected, but certainly more elegant and holy, as seen in the National Gallery’s 15th century Netherlandish painting, “The Annunciation” by Jan van Eyck. What we see here is the blooming of an idea. Young Mary, deeply rooted in Jewish thought and culture, rests her feet on tiles that depict both David beheading Goliath and Samson destroying the Philistine temple. She reads from the Old Testament, and sits under two wall paintings of Moses that flank a stained glass window of Jehovah. It is the old way, the old world, the Old Covenant.

Suddenly, God’s messenger Gabriel appears and says in golden words, Ave Gratia Plena (“Hail, full of grace”), to which Mary responds Ecce Ancilla Domini (“Behold the handmaid of the Lord”). What had been an Old Testament setting now also includes the Dove of the Holy Spirit and three glass windows of the Trinity. The Old and New Covenants are now fused in one breathtaking scene.

We see in van Eyck’s masterpiece that precise moment when B.C. and A.D. quietly, yet thunderously, intersect. Mary will give birth to a tiny Christ child, and the world will witness its own shattering and mending. A new civilization is born the moment the time line splits in two. Irrevocable events are instantaneously set in motion through the utterance of several golden words. A young girl suddenly becomes the Queen of Heaven, as signified by her blue robes, and what had been a simple vase of lilies will now forever be the symbol of her virginity. A deceptively tranquil painting reveals the exact moment when all civilization changes. Old becomes New. Darkness becomes Light. Slaves become Heirs. Thieves become Sons.

How curious to ponder that the instigator of such instant changes is Himself unchanging. The One who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow delights in working on the premise “in the twinkling of an eye.” Mary was just sitting there reading a book. What may any of us be doing?