Three images for Christmas

Look-and be invited deeper into the mystery of Jesus' birth

"God created the arts in order that life might be held together by them, so that we should not separate ourselves from spiritual things" (St. John of the Cross).

I see: I know, I understand, I believe. Sight is our usual metaphor for understanding because we are image-makers. Images come before words. Artwork communicates when words fail us. They are timeless: Places, times and language may change, but art continually takes on new meaning and conveys enduring truth, the deep truth of our faith.

A great many people yearn to experience, through their interaction with works of art, some spiritual dimension locked within its form. This is especially true now, in the seasons of Advent and Christmas, when we're exposed so often to so many different images related to the central story of the Christian faith, the Incarnation.

Our spiritual experience of art will be deepened if we learn to "recognize" in it images that correspond not only to material reality but also to some inner vision.

Everyone is an art critic. As viewer, you bear responsibility for the artwork's interpretation. Finished, the artist relinquished control over it. It is yours.

Seeking spiritual content

Our desire to find the spiritual content in a work of art is not well-served by skipping or glossing over disciplined looking and analysis, however mundane these tasks may seem. Art criticism is as much a doorway into the meaning of our faith as are meditation and mystical experience.

The art critic observes the art and describes it carefully, analyzes the form, studies the artist's life and the historical context, applies what has been discovered, and comes up with an interpretation that makes sense and a judgment regarding quality.

This process never follows an orderly path. You may skip back and forth among the critical tasks. A comprehensive list of each of these is provided at www.the lutheran/0312/artcritique.html.

First, of course, you respond. You can't help it. Just remember that you always place your cultural template on top of everything you see and hear.

To help you in this adventure, keep a journal or notebook close at hand.

Wait. Your first and best strategy may be what I call "active silence." Simply wait in front of a work you find perplexing. Silence leads to openness and willingness to wait for the Spirit's voice. If you do nothing else, do this.

React. Seize your first reaction. Does the artwork delight or disgust you? Stimulate or bore you? I look at The Annunciation by Thai artist Sawai Chinnawong, for example (page 15), and my first response is: richly decorative, colorful, looks medieval.

The stone sculpture Dream Time Coming by Zimbabwean artist Nelson Rumano (page 17) doesn't look like anything in particular, but it makes me feel encircled, calmed, protected, nurtured.

And Kathe Kollwitz's Abschied (Farewell)-oh, my hand moves to my heart (page 18). This is what all mothers fear, and this is what Mary must have known: My child will die. The thread holding us to life is so thin.

Your first reaction to an artwork may be pages long, or as short as these. No need to censor; just do it.

Describe. What do you see? Don't analyze or look for meanings. Just report what's in front of your eyes.

Since The Annunciation is so detailed, I will share only a snippet of my description. I see an outdoor living space. A large green plant with one red flower dominates the left third of the painting. A low wall in the foreground opens in the center to frame two figures. Kneeling on what looks like an orange-tiled terrace is a young Asian woman, black hair pulled up in a knot, wearing red trousers and a magenta jacket. Her feet and midriff are bare. She raises her slender hands in prayer, casts her eyes downward. On the right is a male figure, standing, his body flat and stylized. Now, you finish this description.

Rumano's Dream Time Coming is not a picture. It's a smooth green serpentine stone spiraling three times from the base. The twist culminates in a hemisphere that wraps around a smaller, open space. Inside that space I see a small circular form.

In Kollwitz's Farewell, a quickly drawn outline frames a woman and child. The mother's dark face and hair are drawn in bold strokes. Her eyes and mouth are closed. Her forearms and hands clutch the head of a white-faced child. The hands are large, with wide rough fingers; the wrist is thin and sinewy. The child's eyes are closed, mouth slightly open. The artist only suggests their bodies.

Analyze. Analysis is easier than it sounds. Ask questions, compare and contrast. Dig. Don't worry about getting it exactly right; you are doing this for yourself.

Chinnawong's Annunciation has delicate curving lines and stylized, pointy shapes. Warm colors from gold to hot magenta dominate. The big green plant on the left offsets the visual weight of the angel on the right. Mary seems to have her own space, as if she is floating on a sea of orange bubbles.

Dream Time Coming is abstract. What does it represent? It's not obvious. Like The Annunciation, it has some decorative characteristics-in particular the gorgeous green stone from which it is carved. The lines are wide, bold and simple: only three twists, ending into the center oval space. It's monochromatic, having only tints and shades of green. It also is monolithic, a closed form except for that one opening. The viewer's eye is drawn to the disc inside the hole.

The lines in Farewell vary from bold and coarse in the mother's head and hands, to fine and delicate in the modeling of the child's face. The border presents the scene as if viewed through a window. The value contrast is dramatic, the upper quadrant of the drawing (where the mother's head is placed) so dark that it's hard to make out, while the child's face and the mother's hands are pale. A gray semicircular shadow cradles the two heads.

Interpret. Art interpretation doesn't "explain" the work, for art's power lies in its ability to express what language cannot. One method is to ask questions. Start with the most obviously improbable questions you can think of, that could only be answered with a no. Keep on asking - you'll arrive by stages to maybe, possibly, yes, with qualifications and eureka! Or you may prefer to free-associate:

Look at the artwork and reflect on what you see and what the image evokes in you.

I gaze at The Annunciation, for example, and think of late medieval and early Renaissance paintings of the same subject and having similar depictions of space. Gabriel has just given Mary some pretty shocking news-why doesn't she look excited, awed or overjoyed?

Then I remember what it was like to discover, at 20, that I was pregnant. I think of what went through my mind (and my husband's) as we reeled from shock to acceptance to joy.

Here is an event every woman and most men can identify with. Seeing the scene through a different cultural template reminds me that it's a universal experience. We understand how women get pregnant, and why, and still we describe it as a miracle.

What I see in Dream Time Coming may not be what you see, or even what the artist had in mind. That's what I like about abstract art. This could be an African Madonna, but I see the opening as a womb.

This artwork is about the future (the title helps me here). I think it expresses a mother's dreams for the new life inside her body. No wonder Mary in Chinnawong's Annunciation looks inscrutable: She has already turned inward, focused on the inner miracle.

Farewell may seem like an odd choice for Christmastime. But when I first saw it, this little drawing took me back to a type of Greek icon in which Mary weeps as she holds her infant Jesus on her lap. Why is she weeping? She sees the future. She grieves his death even as she cradles him on her lap.

Kollwitz's mother, clasping her dead or dying child, expresses what all parents fear and what Mary perhaps knew: loss of the child, mourning, bereavement. God enters the world in weakness, a vulnerable human who will die. The thread is thin, a spider's silky fiber. But the thread holds. Mary's baby will die. Mary's baby will redeem us all.

Evaluate. You don't have to pass judgment. But after you describe, analyze and interpret the artwork before you, distinctions about quality will come more easily.

Annunciation, Dream Time Coming and Farewell all pass the test of originality: They offer insight, a unique view. All have a powerful presence. All express profoundly the miracle, hope and danger of new birth.

They make me think of the one who gave me birth and how she must have felt when she carried me, and how I miss her. They evoke the fear of loss that I, like every parent, conceal in my heart. They bring me to an awareness of the indescribable wonder of God becoming, not only flesh, but a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, a helpless baby.

Respond. The most rewarding response is a creative one. You may be moved to create art. Or you may organize an art exhibit for your congregation. Write a poem, say a prayer, share a story. Think about liturgy as art and participate with that awareness. How will I respond to Annunciation, Dream Time Coming and Farewell? Time will tell.

Wait. Time will tell, indeed. Give these images time to settle and jell, to connect with your memories and experiences.

Sitting or standing in front of an image-especially one that is difficult or troubling-wait, and then wait some more.

Allow the art to work on you. Wait, and listen for the Spirit's voice.

Stone is an artist and art educator, adjunct professor of art at the University of Texas at Arlington and art specialist for the public schools in Fort Worth. She is the author of Image and Spirit:Finding Meaning in Visual Art (Augsburg Books, 2003; www.augsburg books.com). She is a member of St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Forth Worth, and Jesse Lake Lutheran Church, Talmoon, Minn.

Copyright Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Dec 2003
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