Don't look yet... it's not finished.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

I like the idea of our life being a work of art. That there's something to who we are that's beyond words. That somehow doing dishes, driving to work, changing diapers, shopping for pickles, all of it together is more than each thing on its own. That somehow the everydayness of life is a poem or a dance or a painting.

If life is a painting, what would the painting look like? Well, I don't know. I can't answer that because it depends on who you are, and where you are, and when you are. But, we could look at actual paintings that might help us think through what our respective and particular life paintings might look like, or at least what we hope they might look like.

Before we get going on paintings, maybe we could read through one of this week's lectionary readings for the sake of getting some focus:

But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
   what God is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
   be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously—
   take God seriously. ~ Micah 6:8 (The Message)

Or the easier to remember version:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
         And what does the LORD require of you
         But to do justice, to love kindness,
         And to walk humbly with your God? ~Micah 6:8 (NASB)

Okay, so we have doing, loving, walking. Maybe our "life painting" will be about doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God. That narrows it down somewhat, but let's look at a fantastic quote by Henri Nouwen that'll focus it down even more; it'll give us a great matrix for thinking about what our doing-loving-walking life painting might look like.

"There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another's wounds. Let's remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness."
~ Henri Nouwen

So we have a nice and simple comparison going here, our life could be a painting whose process is driven by success or it can be a painting whose process is driven by fruitfulness. It's simple, but I don't think it's simplistic. Remember we're just thinking this through, so real life isn't going to fall neatly into either/or. It'll be somewhere on a continuum between the two, and it'll be moving, continually.

Hmmm. Success oriented power and control vs fruits oriented vulnerability and weakness. That brings two paintings to mind. What are the chances! 

The painting at the top of this post is called "Oath of the Horatii" by Jacques-Louis David [pronounced Dah-veed if you want to get all art snooty about it]. First of all the painting is huge, it's 330cm high and 425cm long (For the metrically challenged, that's 10'x15'.) It hangs in the Louvre in Paris and to stand in front of it is to be dominated by its size. The scene depicted is of the three sons of Horatius swearing an oath before their father to protect their city of Rome, to the death if necessary.

One of David's life long projects was to purge emotion from his paintings and in his very technique we see him espouse this view. The setting, a stage really, is unadorned, sparse. The space is still, calm and reserved. There is a pervading detachment between subject and painter, as though the painter is distant and aloof, unaffected by the human drama of the event, interested only in the reasoned message to be dispassionately transmitted. As evidence of David's dispassionate stance I offer the painting shown below, "The Death of Marat." Again we see a calm, sparse and serene painting, an emotional detachement from the very emotional subject of murder. Marat was a French revolutionary writer who was murderd while in the bath, he was one of David's best freinds. This was as emotional as David got.

 

David was, more or less, a mouth piece for the Napoleon. He hoped to spread the gospel of enlightened reason which he saw as undergirding Napoleon's political aspirations. This painting, for instance, was intended to "help improve public morality." 2

Emotion was, as David saw it, weak and unreliable. He hoped to appeal only to reason, reason was strong and trustworthy. We plainly see David's condemnation of emotion in the content of "Oath of the Horatii"—as well as where, exactly, women stood in the painter's estimation of things.

The left side of the painting is angular and decidedly masculine. It depicts three young warriors standing strong, virile, resolute. It would be hard to imagine a more rock solid stance, which is sort of the idea because they are giving the Roman salute. It makes sense that an empire predicated on military might would have a pretty kick ass salute. The warrior's father solemnly holds aloft the tools of their trade. Indeed, the three swords are the compositional centre of the painting, in reverent suspended animation. 

In contrast, the right side of the painting is curvilinear and decidedly feminine. Here we see three women and two children. The women are overcome, they wilt and fold under the burden of emotion, this curse of non-reason renders them wilting bystanders.

To summarize: on the left; masculine, reason, strength. On the right; feminine, emotion, weakness.

So here we have a top down painting, it stands above, it stands apart from. It deals with abstractions. It begins from a place of fear and moves to necessities, namely the necessity of valourous death and glorious sacrifice. It is all these things in an attempt to control a populace, to steer and corral toward a political agenda. Thus, as it seeks to control, it is about the unchallenged goodness of strength and control. It is a painting about Nouwen's previously defined "successfulness."

This doesn't seem to me a doing-loving-walking kind of painting.

 

This next painting is Goya's "The Third of May 1808," painted in 1814, about 29 years after "Oath of the a Horatii." While the scale of David's painting makes for larger than life figures, the scale of Goya's painting, 266x345cm makes the figures roughly life size. The scene depicted is of Spanish rebels being executed at the hands of French soldiers under Napoleon's government, an event that took place, as the title suggests, May 3, 1808.

Goya, rather than eschew emotion, embraces emotion. This is a dramatic heart rending painting. It is a very "painterly" painting. Unlike David's restrained technique, Goya's brush strokes are themselves unrestrained expressions. Critical parts of the painting, particularly the depiction of blood, is slathered on, built up, three dimensional, viscous.

Goya's disgust at the silence and even capitulation of the church in the face of such atrocities was well known. We see the dark church sitting idly in the distant background, without light. The only light source is the lamp at the soldier's feet. Some have postulated the lamp is representative of the enlightenment project, it illuminates this bloody massacre, the inevitable outcome of a government guided by cold hard reason. 

The single light source and imposing contrasts of dark and light sets off the central figure, in white, arms outstretched in a pose reminiscent of a crucifix. (There is even slight stigmata visible on the man's left palm.) The soldiers, rather than the honoured titular characters as in David's painting, are here an anonymous mass, turned from us, their weapons being their most prominent unifying feature. If there is any doubt as to what is about to happen the bodies laying in the foreground erase that doubt. As if to enforce the plodding inevitability of the horrors, Goya has painted more peasants to the right, eyes covered, heads bowed awaiting their awful fate.

What we have is a terrible moment frozen in time. We see the grisly aftermath of what has just transpired, we see what is transpiring this second and we see what is still to come. This is a painting that doesn't shy from raw and difficult truth but dares confront it, all of it, head on.

 

Goya often operated on a bit of knife edge. He was commissioned to paint the Spanish royal framily, the result is "Carlos IV of Spain and His Family" shown above. He painted what he was asked to paint, but his penetrating insight couldn't help but show up on canvas. As Daudet noted the royal family are painted as "the baker's family who have just won the big lottery prize." 1 The painter places himself in the painting at the far left, looking directly at the viewer. The effect is akin to a comedic actor aping to the camera, "Seriously, do you believe this?" Later art critics wondered if the royal family were too inbred and arrogant to know they were being made fun of.

"Third of May" rides a similar, although less dangerous knife edge. He was asked to create a piece commemorating the May 3rd massacre, essentially a propaganda piece condemning the French, instead he created a protest piece condemning war. He was asked to paint, "look what they did to us," instead he painted "look what we did to each other." He painted what he was asked to paint, but his insight into and ability to depict the human condition in all its raw intensity subverts the commissioned intent.

A critical point to note is that Goya didn't abandon himself to emotion. His paintings, while often emotional, but were not about losing oneself in emotion. Indeed, he intended his emotional paintings to effect change in reasonable people. Goya paints with hope, the hope of moving toward a world without the horrors of war. He depicts the grotesqueness of war, the untold human emotional trauma of war in order to move viewers toward the reasonable conclusion that war is unreasonable.

I don't imagine Goya fooled himself into thinking his painting would end war. But I'm guessing he thought it would be fruitful. He chose not to depict idealized heroism and abstract honour but instead put on graphic display the ultimate vulnerability and weakness embodied. He did so not to revel in the brokenness of humanity, but to confront honestly our propensity to hurt; to confront unflinchingly the face of the wounded in order that we might move toward a world without hurt, without wounds. 

We have a painting that is present, it stands in the midst of awful truth that we might stand there along with it. It deals with the embodied realities of abstract notions. It begins from a place of hope and moves to difficult confrontation, namely the necessity that we be honest with ourselves. Death inflicted on another cannot be valourous. Sacrifice is never glorious, it can only ever be humble. The painting is all these things toward an agenda of hope. Thus, as it lays bare the human condition, it is about vulnerability and weakness. It is a painting about "fruitfulness" in that it hopes to be fruitful.

This seems to me a doing-loving-walking kind of painting and one that might inform what a doing-loving-walking life might look like.

 

I'd like to follow up this post with another that broadens out the idea of life as a work of art from painting to a more general notion of "culture making." I think it might provide some useful images to think through in terms of what a doing-loving-walking work of art life might look like.

 

1. Hartt, Frederick. Art: A History of Painting Scultpure Architechture, Vol. II. pg.800.

2 Hunter, Sam. Modern Art. Vol. II. pg 10.

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