JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!
I was blessed to visit the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth over Christmas week which was hosting a world-renowned exhibit entitled Faces of Impressionism - Portraits from the Musee d'Orsay. I felt as if I had been transported back to my time in Paris, when such beautiful works of art surrounded me and were a metro stop away, and I could drink in the beauty of such masterpieces at a moment's notice. The striking beauty that these impressionist and post-impressionist painters created provided a profound sense of awe and peace within me.
Instead of staid portraits and strictly constructed landscapes, the impressionist school sought to capture movement, color, light, and ordinary objects in a less formal way. Such wide brush strokes and painting via plein-air techniques created pieces that captured the mood of its subjects and gave an almost whimsical and relaxed mood to the viewer. Post impressionists took this idea and modified it to use more abstract forms and geographical shapes and symbols to convey beauty and mood of the subject. Such artists include Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cezanne.
I was reminded of some truths among the beauty of these various paintings:
1. Seeing the vibrancy of colors and freedom of movement and subjects in the brush strokes stirred in my soul the sense that God does not work in rigid fashion and tends to color outside the lines. Just when we think that we have things figures out, He surprises us! We know that God's ways are indeed not our ways!
2. In addition, the liberty with which the artists depicted the various subject matter, whether they be persons, objects, landscapes, or other scenes, reminded me of how much freedom is found in knowing God and allowing Him to shape and mold our lives. When we trust Him, He takes us on an unexpected journey and creates a canvas of interwoven colors and shapes as the final product. The key is to trust Him always, even when we cannot see the end point.
3. Experiencing beauty is pivotal to our spiritual growth, sense of joy, and fulfillment. We need beauty, like we need the air we breathe. It is necessary to seek true beauty wherever we can find it and to take time to savor it. We must let it soak into our very being, into our bones so that we can take this tiny reflection of God's divine nature within us. This gives us hope and fills us with a sense of purpose and that all will be well. It stokes the fires of meditation and contemplation...the desire to see God or at least commune with Him more intimately.
St. Augustine tells us, "Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
Let us then celebrate beauty and try to surround ourselves with it whenever we can. This will assist us in pondering on the law of the Lord day and night and getting ever closer to God, who is beauty itself. Amen.
