Saturday Synaxis

Father of mercies, send Thy grace

All-powerful from above,

To form in our obedient souls

The image of Thy love.

- from #18 in the Augustine Hymn Book, 19th century

Dante in Exile

(Note: This article was originally posted in 2015)

Here's a painting I find very interesting: "Dante in Exile," by the Victorian artist Frederic Leighton (1864). 

One immediately senses the tension in the painting: Dante (the black-cloaked figure in the center) faces directly toward us; while the other characters are moving elsewhere, mostly toward the room behind him. At first glance, one would think that this shows Dante's exclusion, his loneliness in his place of exile. But a second glance shows that this isn't entirely the case: many of the participants, though moving past Dante or turned in a different direction than him, are in fact looking at him: the child in the foreground, the young woman in the passing group, and the seated man to Dante's left. Even the red-cloaked man up in the room behind seems to be talking about Dante, gesturing toward him with his hand. Dante, though alone and opposite the flow of everything around him, is nevertheless (or perhaps, because of this) the object of everyone's attention.

So what is this all about? A quick history lesson: Dante, of course, is the Italian poet famed for writing "The Divine Comedy," (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), one of the greatest literary works of all time. But he was also a political figure, having been a leader and supporter of the White Guelph faction in his hometown of Florence, and it just so happened that in 1302 the White Guelphs were exiled from Florence. Dante spent the rest of his life in exile in Italy, starting in Rome and ending in Ravenna. It was during his long exile that he wrote his masterpiece.

This painting by Leighton shows Dante's exile in beautiful detail--in particular, it encapsulates Dante's resolution that drove him to write. A quick glance at Dante's figure may show him as sort of a passive character, with the world passing him by. But this is merely an illusion. It is precisely his posture against the flow of the world around him, against the worldly revelry, that makes up the theme of the first canto of The Divine Comedy. His face is mournful, brokenhearted at his exile, but it is also resolute--it will not attend to the bustling cares of this world. His folded hands seem at first to be submissive, resigned. But this too is an illusion, for in his right hand he holds a book, his finger already marking a place within it; and it is with a book that he will make his stand against the ways of the world. 

Perhaps the subtlest detail of all, though, is his feet. Everything about Dante is static except his feet. One would have guessed from his posture that his feet would have been together, but no, he seems to be stepping forward with his left foot. This is, in fact, an allusion to a line in his first canto, as he describes his decision to find the straight path that he had lost: "I dragged my stronger foot and limped along" (Inferno I:30). The dragging of the foot is taken to be a symbol of the way Dante feels rooted to the old life, to the ways of the world, and that impulse is stronger than his affinity for pursuing the way of faith; nevertheless, he resolves to step forward, even if it means dragging along that old, worldly part of himself. 

Exile is never an easy place to be, and the painting shows us that. But by putting into imagery the very mood of Dante's first canto, it also reminds us that we are all in exile. Every one of us has lost the straight path, and we find ourselves "in a darkened wood." It is our choice whether to go along the easy path of following the world into its spiritual exile of vice, or of dragging our unwilling selves up the hard mountain toward virtue.

Christ before the High Priest

(Note: An earlier version of this article was published in 2015)

Way back when Rachel and I were college freshmen, we encountered this painting: "Christ before the High Priest," by Gerrit von Honhorst. We were part of the First-Year Honors Program at Houghton College, which took us over to London for our spring semester. There we studied history, philosophy, literature, and art, from ancient times to the present. Much of our workload had us going out to the many museums in London to see firsthand some of the great works of Western civilization. By the end of the semester, the National Gallery had come to feel like a home away from home. And even after seeing and studying thousands of paintings, there were a few that managed to stick in one's memory and imagination. For both me and Rachel, this was one such painting. (We now have a print of it hanging in our dining room.) The original work is of large proportions--nine feet tall by six feet wide--so it readily commands one's attention, even in a crowded gallery. 
 
Appreciating great paintings is a skill that's being lost in our present society, thanks to the over-saturation of our culture with images. But imagine that you lived before the Internet, before television, before photography, perhaps even before woodcut illustrations in printed texts. In that world, an image was an exceptionally rare thing. Rather than a mass-produced image file, one of millions you could look at, an image in those days would have been the singular creation of an artist's genius and hard work. As such, most images that were made had a high degree of intentionality and meaningfulness worked into them, in contrast to much of today's photographic imagery. To sit with a great painting is, in a way, much the same thing as to read a great work of literature--to open one's mind to conversation with a thoughtful perspective from another age, another culture, another way of looking at the human condition. 
 
The first thing to know about this painting is that it was influenced by Caravaggio's style of tenebrism (a particular version of chiaroscuro). This means that the painting is characterized by large contrasts between light and dark, such that the contrast itself becomes one of the leading stylistic elements. For a painting like this, whose subject is Christ, the style is fitting: Jesus is "the light [which] shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John. 1:5). The irony of the image is that the high priest, who holds on his table the only source of visible light in the room, cannot understand that the Light of the World is standing before him. 

He also has the open book of the Law of Moses in front of him, unaware that the man across the table is both the One who inspired those ancient words (the quill pen leans toward Christ, hinting to him as the author), and who is himself their final fulfillment. A second book is also open on the table, but turned away from the high priest, as if he does not consult this one--perhaps a reference to the Old Testament prophets, who speak about the coming Servant of God. 

Also, notice the interplay between the postures and faces of the two men: the high priest, though seated and required to look up into the face of Christ, is proud and accusatory. Christ, though his posture and clothing reveal a submission to the events of his Passion, shows no submission to the message of this high priest--his eyes are locked on the priest's, silent but strong. 

Now look at the contrast between the two men's hands. The high priest holds up a single finger, lecturing Christ. This priest is certain that he has the truth, and is defensive against Christ's claim to be, in and of himself, "the Truth." Christ's hands are bound, but not really passive. They are elegant and strong, and composed together in a patient assurance of his own truthfulness, an assurance so strong that it has no need of making a defense against the high priest's attack. 

Finally, look at the other faces in the painting. There are a few shadowy figures behind Christ, representing the soldiers who arrested Jesus and brought him to this trial. But behind the high priest stand two men in Renaissance-era clothes, representing contemporaries of the artist. (It was common practice to work one's patrons, oneself, or other contemporary figures into historical paintings.) The interesting thing here, of course, is that the artist has placed these contemporaries on the side of the high priest, not of Christ, and their posture and expressions are just as proud and defensive as the high priest's. This is a reminder to us of our perpetual human inclination, when faced by the patient, gracious, but life-transforming person of Christ, to retreat into ourselves, into our own stubborn assurance that we've got it right and anyone who would challenge us must be wrong. (And Christians, like the high priest, can sometimes even use our own particular interpretation of the Bible as a weapon of this vain self-assurance, a defense against what Christ would do in our lives if we really let him.) This painting is a call to us to let all those vain pretensions slip away, and to actually do what none of those in the painting, because of their stubborn self-benightedness, are doing--to kneel down in the presence of the Light of the World, and to acknowledge him, and him alone, as the center of our lives.

Have a Blessed Good Friday

"Crucifixion," by Tintoretto, 1565

The Divine Liturgy

(Icon: "The Divine Liturgy," by Michael Damaskinos, 16th cent.)

I have a copy of this icon in my church office. The basics of the image are clear: this is the Trinity--Father, Son and Holy Spirit, enthroned in glory, and all around them, worshiping, are various classes of the heavenly beings. They carry with them books of worship and incense and candles and a chalice and a literalized image of "the body of Christ." Below are two saints, looking down at the globe of the earth in prayerful contemplation. This is a vision of "the divine liturgy," the worship service of the Christian church, as it goes on in the heavenly courts.

This image serves as theological reminder to me of a very important fact, one rooted in Scriptures (such as the worship scenes in Revelation) and in the ancient traditions of Christianity: when we worship, we are actually taking part in the timeless, eternal worship of God in the heavenly places. The Body of Christ is not limited to the four walls of my church in Calais, Maine--it is a trans-historical, international community that is mystically interconnected throughout time and space. As the Orthodox traditions of the church teach, the Christian service of worship is an event that actually occurs beyond the limits of time and space, connected with all the churches from all time that have worshiped in this way, and connected with the timeless courts of the Trinitarian God, where such worship is the very nature of reality itself. When we worship in our church every Sunday, we do it in the presence of all the angels and the saints. That is something worth remembering.

Learning Doctrine with Your Eyes (Also, the Color of Your Soul)

 

(Modern Russian version of a classic Byzantine-form icon, titled "The Resurrection")

 Within the last couple years, I've begun to study and appreciate Eastern Orthodox icons. I remember when I was first exposed to them, at a showing at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity during my freshman year of college. In that semester, I and my fellow students had been spending hours at the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery, taking in some of the greatest works of Western European painting. I remember thinking that the Orthodox icons looked flat and stale in comparison. Figures were two-dimensional, faces were always full-on or three-quarters view (no profile), there was no sense of depth and no contrast of light and dark, and the backgrounds were all the same--weirdly golden. My next exposure to icons also came during my college years, when I visited a Greek Orthodox church in Buffalo. Although a very kind and knowledgeable Sunday School teacher explained the meaning and use of icons to us, it was still a little too far beyond what I had known before for it to strike me as anything but strange. Orthodox worshipers would interact with the icons as if they were people--pausing to pray before them, even kissing them on the lips.

But in my seminary years, I began to study Eastern Orthodox theology itself, and that's where my appreciation of icons really began. You see, icons aren't simply paintings. They are specially designed to be portrayals of spiritual realities--of a particular saint, or of a particular doctrine. If you ever hear an art historian tell you that the art of Eastern Christianity ceased developing in the 15th century, feel free to disregard them, because they doesn't quite know what they're talking about. The forms of iconography are relatively static for a very good reason: they are depictions of Orthodox theology. And in Orthodox theology (unlike in Western art), individual creativity is not a virtue. Rather, faithfulness to what has been handed down to us is the primary virtue. Icons are not created to hang in art galleries, they are created to be sacred objects for use in prayer, either in churches or private homes. Even the process of designing an icon is different than creating a Western painting--the iconographer is a special sort of person, seen as the recipient of a spiritual gift, and his work is done prayerfully, as an exercise of devotion. After an icon is completed and blessed for use, it is regarded as a "window to heaven," as an actual incarnation of the spiritual reality it depicts. Orthodox theologians argue fiercely that iconography is a central expression of our belief in Christ's incarnation--that the ultimate reality, the being of God himself, has become accessible to us through matter, through flesh and blood. And in the church's sacraments, as well as in icons, those spiritual realities are actually really present with us here and now, not distantly removed in some vaulted heaven. This is why they are referred to as "icons" not "paintings"--"icon" is the very same Greek word used in the New Testament to say that Jesus is "the image of the invisible God." So if you ever get the privilege to go to an Orthodox church, and see the galleries of icons around you, understand that this is intended to show us that heaven is present with us in this place. When we worship, we worship in the company of saints and angels around the throne of God. 

Let's use this icon of the Resurrection (above) to go through some of the important stylistic points to know. This form is the classic depiction of the Resurrection within Orthodoxy. It does not seek to show an imaginative portrayal of the historical event, as Western paintings do, but to communicate to us the meaning of the dogma of the Resurrection. First, the words: the Cyrillic letters at the top spell out "he anastasis," that is, "The Resurrection." The "IC" and "XC" with lines on top are abbreviations of a sacred name, in this case, "Jesus" and "Christ." 

Now look at the golden sky. This is perhaps the most common element in icons, and it shows the heavenly nature of this reality. You'll also notice two jagged sets of stone rising behind the scene; this is typical iconographic topography, and here it seems to represent the rent-open cave of Christ's tomb. 

The radiant blue shell-like structure is commonly seen with Christ in icons of the Transfiguration, Resurrection, and Ascension. It helps show us the divine nature of the human soul shot through with the uncreated light of God's own being, displayed openly in these revelatory events. This blue circle is a less-commonly-seen convention of the halo, but around Christ it is sometimes a whole-body affair. (Incidentally, there are several stories about the greatest Orthodox mystics having visions about the nature of one's soul in the highest levels of theosis; it turns out that the color they report is a brilliant shade of blue. So if you've ever wondered what the color of your soul was, there you have it.)

You'll also notice that there are a whole bunch of people around Jesus. In most portrayals, these are the Old Testament saints that he is liberating from Hades. John the Baptist is always there, usually accompanied by kings, patriarchs, and prophets. The two people Christ is lifting up by their wrists are Adam and Eve, being brought out of their tombs. The black void under his feet, and the bound man, are representations of Hades, and the boards and random pieces of links and keys floating in that void show the shattered pieces of the gates of Hell, which Christ has just smashed down. This puts into pictorial form the great liturgical proclamation of the ancient church: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life."

So, the next time you see an icon, don't get stuck paying too much attention to the artistic details that we would normally look for in paintings. Because it's not primarily a piece of art, it's visual theology. Pause and study the meaning behind the form, and let it lead you into prayer.

Have You Been Over-Sexualized by Our Culture?

(Painting: "The Vision of St Bernard," by Alonzo Cano, c.1650, oil on canvas; image is in the public domain)

This is a painting of the Virgin Mary squirting milk from her breast into the mouth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Quick--what's your first reaction to it? Is it amusing? Disgusting? Just plain weird? Or is it a holy and mystical event before which we should pause in serious reverence? Your answer to this question should help you gauge how much our contemporary culture has shaped the way you view a woman's body. It may also help you gauge how much you experience your spirituality in gnostic categories rather than finding the grace of God present through physical, sacramental realities as well. 

If you know anything about history and Catholic devotion, then you can probably guess that this painting was intended to bring to view a holy and mystical event before which we should pause in serious reverence. The painter, Alonzo Cano, was not always a man known for his devout temperament (he had serious issues with his temper), but his works all reflect the dominant, reverential Catholic spirituality of his day. This painting represents a famous event in the spiritual life of Saint Bernard (12th century), one of the most influential Christians of the Middle Ages, who was known especially for his reverence towards Mary. 

But we live in a culture where women's breasts have been sexualized, where even breastfeeding (a thoroughly non-sexual act) is often attacked as being inappropriate when done in public. So this painting, though there is nothing overtly sexual about it, takes us by surprise. It's not the sort of painting that any of us would now think of commissioning to hang in our churches. Even though it shows poignantly the reverence of a great man of God to one of the greatest human exemplars of our faith, to the vessel wherein God's full being dwelt for a time, and though it shows us the nurturing, life-giving spiritual grace he receives from contemplating her faith, we 21st-century Americans have a tough time seeing that. At least, not at first. 

Full disclosure--my first reaction on seeing this painting was to chuckle. When we were looking for a print of a painting to hang in our dining room, I joked with my wife that we should choose this one just to see the reactions of our dinner guests. But the point is that my own reaction serves to make me aware of how much contemporary culture has affected my sensibilities about devotion, sexuality, and the human body. My quite natural reaction to this painting in a 21st-century context would have been offensive in the culture that produced it. So the question is this: have my sensibilities gone awry because of my cultural context (or perhaps because of my own wickedness of heart), or was Catholic Spain of the 17th century riotously naive in their estimation of what was an appropriate means of expressing devotion?

This is one of the great benefits of studying old paintings (and reading old books). They can, sometimes in remarkable ways, reveal to us our own cultural and intellectual blind spots. And once we know those blind spots are there, we can work on mending our worldviews, or at least taking into account a humble understanding of our own biases in the future. We need to remember that not everybody has always held the same sensibilities that we do now. And we need to at least entertain the possibility that we millennials might be seeing things askew, and the old reverences may in fact be right.

Christ before the High Priest

(Painting: "Christ before the High Priest," by Gerard van Honthorst, c. 1617)

 Way back when Rachel and I were college freshmen, we encountered this painting. We were part of the First-Year Honors Program at Houghton College, which took us over to London for our spring semester. There we studied history, philosophy, literature, and art, from ancient times to the present. Much of our workload had us going out to the many museums in London to see firsthand some of the great works of Western civilization. By the end of the semester, the National Gallery had come to feel like a home away from home. And even after seeing and studying thousands of paintings, there were a few that managed to stick in one's memory and imagination. For both me and Rachel, this was one such painting. (We now have a print of it hanging in our dining room.) The original work is of large proportions--nine feet tall by six feet wide--so it readily commands the attention, even in a crowded gallery.

Appreciating great paintings is a skill that's being lost in our present society, thanks to the over-saturation of our culture with images. But imagine that you lived before the Internet, before television, before photography, perhaps even before woodcut illustrations in printed texts. In that world, an image was an exceptionally rare thing. Rather than a mass-produced image file, one of millions you could look at, an image in those days would have been the singular creation of an artist's genius and hard work. As such, most images that were made had a high degree of intentionality and meaningfulness worked into them, in contrast to much of today's photographic imagery. To sit with a great painting is, in a way, much the same thing as to read a great work of literature--to open one's mind to conversation with a thoughtful perspective from another age, another culture, another way of looking at the human condition. 

So, in order to assist my readers with an appreciation of the paintings I post here on the occasional Throwback Thursday, I'll give a few pointers as to objects of particular notice in each painting. I don't claim to be an art expert, so don't anyone take these sputtering thoughts to help write a paper on art criticism or anything; but I'd like to at least be able to share a bit of the sense of wonder and depth that I experience in the presence of a great painting. (And, naturally, this is a less-than-perfect medium--I would advise you to go visit a museum, where you can actually see the colors and the brushwork in front of you, rather than to read my blog about paintings.)

The first thing to know about this painting is that it was influenced by Caravaggio's style of tenebrism (a particular version of chiaroscuro). This means that the painting is characterized by large contrasts between light and dark, such that the contrast itself becomes one of the leading stylistic elements. For a painting like this, whose subject is Christ, the style is fitting: Jesus is "the light [which] shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John. 1:5). The irony of the image is that the high priest, who holds on his table the only source of visible light in the room, cannot understand that the Light of the World is standing before him. He also has the open book of the Law of Moses in front of him, unaware that the man across the table is both the One who inspired those ancient words (the quill pen leans toward Christ, hinting to him as the author), and who is himself their final fulfillment. A second book is also open on the table, but turned away from the high priest, as if he does not consult this one--perhaps a reference to the Old Testament prophets, who speak about the coming Servant of God. Also, notice the interplay between the postures and faces of the two men: the high priest, though seated and required to look up into the face of Christ, is proud and accusatory. Christ, though his posture and clothing reveal a submission to the events of his Passion, shows no submission to the message of this high priest--his eyes are locked on the priest's, silent but strong. Now look at the contrast between the two men's hands. The high priest holds up a single finger, lecturing Christ. This priest is certain that he has the truth, and is defensive against Christ's claim to be, in and of himself, "the Truth." Christ's hands are bound, but not really passive. They are elegant and strong, and composed together in a patient assurance of his own truthfulness, an assurance so strong that it has no need of making a defense against the high priest's attack. Finally, look at the other faces in the painting. There are a few shadowy figures behind Christ, representing the soldiers who arrested Jesus and brought him to this trial. But behind the high priest stand two men in Renaissance-era clothes, representing contemporaries of the artist. (It was common practice to work one's patrons, oneself, or other contemporary figures into historical paintings.) The interesting thing here, of course, is that the artist has placed these contemporaries on the side of the high priest, not of Christ, and their posture and expressions are just as proud and defensive as the high priest's. This is a reminder to us of our perpetual human inclination, when faced by the patient, gracious, but life-transforming person of Christ, to retreat into ourselves, into our own stubborn assurance that we've got it right and anyone who would challenge us must be wrong. (And Christians, like the high priest, can sometimes even use our own particular interpretation of the Bible as a weapon of this vain self-assurance, a defense against what Christ would do in our lives if we really let him.) This painting is a call to us to let all those vain pretensions slip away, and to actually do what none of those in the painting, because of their stubborn self-benightedness, are doing--to kneel down in the presence of the Light of the World, and to acknowledge him, and him alone, as the center of our lives.

Throwback Thursday: The Story of a Storm (and Possibly an Angel)

For "Throwback Thursday," I'm posting a story from my life, which took place in the early winter of 2000-2001 (when I was a senior at Caribou High School, in northern Maine).

("Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind," by John Everett Millais, 1892, oil on canvas; image in the public domain)

Dad and I were driving to school one morning, and we had picked up another high schooler, Megan (a girl from my youth group), along the way. Because her house was out on a back road, we were driving down an empty wooded stretch before connecting to one of the main roads into Caribou. The weather report for that day had been terrible, and already a wild wind was howling. But, as is the way in northern Maine, school almost never gets canceled by weather reports alone, but only by the weather itself. So we plugged on, watching as the wind screamed through the snow-laden woods around us. 

Then, suddenly, we saw a massive tree down ahead, blocking the entire width of the road. We stopped the car and got out to take a quick look at it. It was like stepping into a wild, strange world--the normally quiet woods around us were groaning and cracking, and tiny snowflakes were driven so hard by the wind that they felt like needlepricks on the skin. While we were standing there, on the point of deciding that we needed to turn around and drive all the way back to the other main road, a pickup truck pulled up behind us. It was a local pastor whom we knew, and he too stepped out to get a look at the fallen tree. Just then the most uncanny thing happened: a hundred yards behind us, another tall tree snapped in the wind and fell all the way across the road. We were blocked in on both sides. We stood there for a few moments, unsure of what to do, and all the while we could hear the creaking and snapping of trunks and limbs all around us. There was a sense of urgency in the air--the longer we waited, the more likely it was that another tree could snap and fall towards the car. Thankfully, though, the pastor who was trapped with us happened to have all the necessary ropes and tow cables in his pickup. So he latched on to the first tree and was able to haul it out of the road, and we were on our way again. 

The story didn’t end with that strange episode, though. By the time we got into Caribou, snow had started to fall thick and fast, and finally the school department decided to cancel school for the students, but still to have an in-service day for teachers. That meant that I, still relatively new at driving, had to drop Dad off at the school and then drive back through a howling blizzard the fifteen or so miles to Megan's house. 

The roads were treacherous, but I took it slow, and we plugged along without incident until we were within a half-mile of home. There we were stopped at the back of a small line of vehicles, unable to move forward. I stepped out of the car to see what was going on, and it was clear that an active power line was down across the road. Megan and I sat there and waited for the repair crew for at least half an hour, listening to the radio to pass the time, but there was no movement in the line. 

Finally I decided that we might be able retrace some of our route and then take the local backroads in order to loop around the fallen power line. So we turned around, and I had gotten about five miles back down the road when the car started to slide out of my control. A gust of wind howled past us, creating a complete whiteout in which I couldn’t see anything at all. All orientation was lost--for all I knew, we were about to tumble into the ditch, or into oncoming traffic on the other side. The whiteout only lasted for a couple seconds, and when it cleared and the car stopped sliding, I saw that we were miraculously still in our own lane. But it scared me enough to convince me to turn back around and wait patiently in the line of cars until the power line had been picked up. It was nearly noon by the time I got Megan and myself back to our homes, but we were safe. 

Years later, I heard Dad give an account of this same day. After we had left him at the school, he was understandably worried about us driving in those conditions. He tried to call the house a couple times during the morning, but of course I wasn’t there yet. And then, out of the blue, someone called the high school and asked to speak to him. A man’s voice, whom he did not recognize, came on and told him not to worry, that I was safe, waiting behind a downed power line. The remarkable thing was that, in looking back, I don’t recall anyone coming up to the car and talking to us or checking on us while we were there—no one, to my knowledge, even knew we were there—certainly I never asked anyone to call Dad. This is one of just a small handful of instances in my life where I'm openly willing to put forward the thought of angels as the most reasonable explanation of what happened. In any case, we all got home safe, and we also got a pretty good story to tell from it.