ART

                                                                                    Art

Image from Internet

Surely art, like beauty, is iin the eyes of the beholder, kind of like, one man’s trash is another’s treasure. Of course, it has a lot to do with perspective. If you’ve ever walked around an art gallery, you’ll know exactly what I mean. You wonder sometimes if the ‘artist’ is taking a lend of you. Is a banana gaffer-taped to a wall art? This is where you get a lecture from the art ‘experts’ on what you, the philistine, are missing! I remember flicking through a magazine in a doctor’s waiting room and seeing a picture of a Pablo Picasso painting. Disjointed, fragmented, disconnected, distorted are some of the words that came to mind. Then I read the painting’s title, The Weeping Woman. It was only then I felt the pain and sorrow Picasso was expressing! Sometimes a little hint helps.

As I strolled through the Kelvngrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow I saw exhibits from Darwin to Dali. The latter has a famous painting hanging there: Christ of Saint John of the Cross. On the cross, floating against a black sky, darkness, Christ is looking down at a boat and fishermen. The whole perspective of the painting is that of looking at Christ from above as He, in turn, looks down at what is below Him. You get the impression that while on the cross, Christ was dangling between His Father in heaven and His people on earth; neither quite here nor there. Yes, the art experts will supply the minutiae, but that’s the big picture of what I saw as I viewed this intriguingly moving work of art. Art is all about perspective.

Christ on the cross is all about perspective. ‘Those who passed by hurled insults at Him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save Yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked Him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but He can’t save Himself! Let this Messiah, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with Him also heaped insults on Him. At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon’ (Mark 15:29-33). The scoffers and blasphemers saw a dying deluded man. Then came the darkness, Dali’s night sky darkness. What did Christ on the cross see? ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ (Mark 15:34b, Psa. 22:1). ‘All who see Me mock Me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads’ (Psa. 22:7). ‘Dogs surround Me, a pack of villains encircles Me; they pierce My hands and My feet’ (Psa. 22:16). Christ also saw His people, ‘I will declare Your name to My people; in the assembly I will praise You’ (Psa. 22:22). And He saw His Kingdom, ‘All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations’ (Psa. 22:27-28).

So, art is about perspective. Christ on the cross is about perspective. Salvador Dali gave his perspective – Christ on the cross with no nails in His hands or feet, no crown of thorns on His head. Why no blood? We’ll leave that for the art experts to explain. But what is your perspective of Christ on the cross (i.e., the real thing, not the Dali painting)? Blasphemer or believer? Is it trash or treasure? Is it someone taking a lend of you or was it done by the very hand of God?

One Christian wrote, ‘The cross was not merely an act of compassion and mercy directed toward mankind; it was a cosmic event in which God demonstrated who and what He is before all the universe.’ (Jay Adams).