my favorite book
This is an excerpt from my favorite book...The Mystical Now: Art and The Sacred by Wendy Beckett
Christmas Painting by Craigie Aitchison
"Over the years, Craigie Aitchison has refined his art to an intense simplicity. There are few actors and few colours in Christmas Painting, but every element is alive with meaning. Christmas is the season when we celebrate new life at a time when the year dies, when nature seems dead. Nothing grows externally, but within humanity is offered a newness of life that can become as great as we are prepared to let it be.
In this painting, there is only one animate creature, Aitchison's dog, surrogate for human presence. He is alone, (as are we all), but he is also still and attentive, as all too often we are not...the dog is innocent. He is consequently unafraid of his loneliness, almost unaware, it appears, of the emptiness stretching away into infinity on either side. He does not even turn his head towards the horizon where new hope is dawning, a long, radiant line of flickering light, mysteriously empurpled. The ominous colour reminds us that our new life is destined to meet with suffering and end in death, yet the death is only temporary.
The Christmas story proclaims that from now on we pass through death into life; yet the dog does not ponder these mysteries. All his attention is on the little tree, that tender intensity of colour, that crucified shape that is both Jesus and Tree. On either branch - either arm - there shines the bright green of new leaves, and the more verdant of the arms spreads itself over the head of the waiting animal. High in the darkness, in the heavens beyond reach, one slight star reiterates the proclamation of salvation. The darkness will never be too much for us, never be overwhelming: there will always be light to guide us into the divine security of God's love. But this proclamation can only come to us if we are too silent and attentive.
We do not need to 'understand' it, any more than the dog does.
We need only to wait, to allow the wonder to embrace us in our human reality. It is our 'animal', our true earthly self that God comes to make holy. There is no inflated imagery in Aitchison's painting; there are no spirits or angels, just animality accepted. The little dog is alight with a heavenly blueness, the beauty of Faith making beautiful."
Christmas Painting by Craigie Aitchison
"Over the years, Craigie Aitchison has refined his art to an intense simplicity. There are few actors and few colours in Christmas Painting, but every element is alive with meaning. Christmas is the season when we celebrate new life at a time when the year dies, when nature seems dead. Nothing grows externally, but within humanity is offered a newness of life that can become as great as we are prepared to let it be.
In this painting, there is only one animate creature, Aitchison's dog, surrogate for human presence. He is alone, (as are we all), but he is also still and attentive, as all too often we are not...the dog is innocent. He is consequently unafraid of his loneliness, almost unaware, it appears, of the emptiness stretching away into infinity on either side. He does not even turn his head towards the horizon where new hope is dawning, a long, radiant line of flickering light, mysteriously empurpled. The ominous colour reminds us that our new life is destined to meet with suffering and end in death, yet the death is only temporary.
The Christmas story proclaims that from now on we pass through death into life; yet the dog does not ponder these mysteries. All his attention is on the little tree, that tender intensity of colour, that crucified shape that is both Jesus and Tree. On either branch - either arm - there shines the bright green of new leaves, and the more verdant of the arms spreads itself over the head of the waiting animal. High in the darkness, in the heavens beyond reach, one slight star reiterates the proclamation of salvation. The darkness will never be too much for us, never be overwhelming: there will always be light to guide us into the divine security of God's love. But this proclamation can only come to us if we are too silent and attentive.
We do not need to 'understand' it, any more than the dog does.
We need only to wait, to allow the wonder to embrace us in our human reality. It is our 'animal', our true earthly self that God comes to make holy. There is no inflated imagery in Aitchison's painting; there are no spirits or angels, just animality accepted. The little dog is alight with a heavenly blueness, the beauty of Faith making beautiful."
posted by Susan Gordon at 3:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home