Above: Christ the Redeemer, Andrei Rublev, early 15th century
As with theological exploration of Christ, depiction of Christ does not conform to our preferred idealized period of history. Our system of neat timelines that slices imagery into eras, holding up one over another as more beautiful or reverent, becomes inadequate the more we perceive the fundamental iconicity of creation and Christ as the Light that has come into the world.
Christological exploration is an exercise in freedom as we desire encounter with the One who sets us free. Theological exploration has continuity even while it may appear the church has split or fallen apart. Seemingly new movements have begun with those who return not only to scripture but to other writings of the early church, such as John Wesley who read St. Macarius the Egyptian. Similarly, concepts in art original to Christianity live on in both eastern iconography and in western religious art.
In “The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty” (apparently out of print but available on Kindle), by Paul Evdokimov, the author writes, “There are ‘points of view,’ always partial and therefore deforming, and then there is full and total seeing which makes man, according to the expression of St. Marcarius, an immense ‘single eye’ penetrated by the divine Light.” The icon at the top was found in a Russian woodshed in 1919. It is recognized to be the work of the great iconographer Rublev for how it brings us face to face with divine Light.
An understanding of experiencing art as an embodied praxis of hope for transfiguration connects to the understanding that the icon, through meditating on it, shows the “Tabor Light,” the uncreated light seen on the mountain of Jesus’ Transfiguration. Rublev shows transfiguration through a great openness to divine Light and an openness to the expression of nature. His figures are not mere idealizations of saints, they move as humans do. In this detail from Rublev’s Transfiguration icon below, Jesus stands with a subtle contrapposto that artists of the Renaissance saw in the work of Praxitiles (Greek, 4th century BC), which was demonstrated in the 20th century by Auguste Rodin in clay, also below.
There are repeating forms in nature lodged deep in our memory which body forth in our art. The artist as a natural creature is revealed in art seeking to transfigure people into icons of the original Icon, Christ, by means of natural signs and symbols.
Do you see Christ in Rublev’s icon of the Ascension below in the mandorla, appearing as Edward Munch’s Sun? Do you see the angels behind Mary shaped as a white lily with Mary at the center, and her womb where the ovary of the flower is, and the heads and necks of the disciples as anthers and stamen gesturing toward the sun? Was Rublev conscious of all he made, or did he, by an eye honed through prayer and art-making, unconsciously repeat patterns made by the original Creator?
Meditation on icons is as the ancient practice of lectio divina in which a passage of scripture is read (lectio), meditated upon (meditatio), prayed with (oratio), and contemplated (contemplatio, implying silence and stillness). Art-making, with color and line as signs applied in meditation, developing shape and symbol articulating meaning, resolving into stillness as an object of contemplation, is a practice aimed at transfiguration for the artist who is humbly dedicated to it.
As Hans Boersma writes in the introduction to his recent book on lectio divina, Pierced by Love: Divine Reading with the Christian Tradition (Lexham Press, 2023), “If reading means encounter, then the imagination is perhaps the key faculty that allows encounter to happen.” He shows how theologians such as Anselm of Canterbury, Aelred of Rievaulx, and Bernard of Clairvaux have used ‘the insight that words make pictures……[and] that through the imagination we are united with Christ as the one revealed to us in biblical words.”
It’s a delightful book, with a beautifully designed cover with what appears to be an etching of Jesus rendered in purple and gold, perhaps speaking parables to the crowds. Telling parables is, in the words of Emily Dickinson, telling the truth but telling it slant. Parables mean what they mean on multiple levels. Without the insight of the Teacher, the Truth and the Light, the interpretation we settle on will be only what we are able to hear and perceive by our own devices.
In our final workshop on Art and Theology a few weeks ago, we looked at paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. One could spend a lifetime unpacking their meaning and never do so. But his allegories and jokes may be enjoyed without worrying much over his elaborate compositions, such as this painting below called "The Peasant and the Birdnester," painted in 1568.
Notice the painter’s use of contrapposto. Brueghel was a fan of painting humble peasants, but he studied in Italy and was well aware of its sophisticated art—he may have poked fun at it while honoring it. This painting is said to be about this Netherlandish proverb:
Dije den nest Weet dijen weeten, dijen Roft dij heeten.
He who knows where the nest is, has the knowledge; he who robs, has the nest.
To my mind, the proverb sounds much like this statement by John the Baptist (John 3:28):
He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full.
Did you know that a device for seeing more deeply into art is to study it upside down? See our beloved icon discovered in 1919 below upside down, next to this painting by Amedeo Modigliani painted in 1917. See humanity shown as the flower of creation and Icon of God, balanced on the neck as a stalk—both heads appear with the balance of a flower, but the neck of Christ has a muscularity that seems more symbolic than plausibly natural.
Do you the Light of a penetrating single-eye only in the Icon of Christ, or can you see this light in each piece of art?
As we seek the perfect Beauty of God, our work will never end until our own transfiguration. Until then, Peace be with you.