Seeing Miracles
A Better Way to Make Art
By Joel Klepac
Vincent Van Gogh, Irises, Oil on canvas 74.3x94.3cm, 1889 - public domain
“The miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine — which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.” - Wendell Berry
There is a way of making art that is an awakening, a coaxing of the eyes open, a relaxing of the analyzing mind and a deepening of presence to the miraculous world all around us. Instead of looking for ways to make statements or start a movement, this kind of being in the world starts in surrender, in kenosis or self-emptying.
Feofan Grek, Transfiguration, Tempera on wood, 184 x 134 cm, 15th century - public domain
The Eastern Orthodox Christian depiction of the transfiguration of Christ, as seen above, shows Christ leading three disciples up the Mount Tabor and back down on the other side. In the middle of the scene is Christ, flanked by Moses and Elijah, with magnificent rays of light emanating from him in every direction. In the Eastern Christian interpretation of the transfiguration, this was not an ancient light show. In fact, the only difference before and after the transfiguration of Christ was that the scales came off the eyes of the disciples. Nothing changed but their blindness.
Thomas Merton's famous Louisville experience echoes the transfiguration:
“ … As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun …”
Again, only one thing changed for Merton after he arrived at the corner of 4th and Walnut in Louisville — the scales came off. The miracle was only veiled by his blindness.
Circling around the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, drawing portions of his sunflower painting and his irises, I can remember the moment I stood with my sketch pad in the museum and realized this was not a style. Van Gogh was not trying to be innovative, pushing the art world forward, or trying to distinguish himself. All this swirling color and radiance, the supersaturated colors — this was a humble man searching, groping, wrestling with paint to depict the radiant beauty he saw all around him. This was not merely a way to paint. It was a way of capturing what he was actually seeing.
The first problem of art is our inability to see, our blindness and the need for our scales to be removed. My hunch is that silence, solitude and long, hard looking is part of it. We must also believe that the world we seek to see is beautiful, and it is worth the journey up the mountain. And once you have caught a glimpse, you become captured by what you see and want more.
If we despair, we may be tempted to retreat into mere slogans and illustrations of our pet ideologies and call that art. But that art is dead and flat, made from our blindness. What I am describing here is an art that is more primal, more universal, more human. It is an art that awakens in the jungle, mystified by beauty and terror, the symphony of birds and bugs.
Joel Klepac, Graphite on paper
In my case, it is about sitting on my back porch in rural America, where I am so used to it. On the surface, the view seems boring, flat, plain and uninteresting. To pick a corner of the yard and begin to draw, to really see, to sit for an hour and find a miraculous vibrating jungle in a square foot of what at first seemed like nothing — that is the task.
And maybe my drawing is not Cezanne's apples, but the act of sitting still and looking hard long enough for the scales to finally come off for a moment allows me to peek once again into the true nature of nature — that all is miracle, all is Starry Night, Sunflowers, and Irises, all is radiant transfiguration, all is shining like the sun.
Joel Klepac studied fine art painting at Asbury University where he was first inspired by the work of Georges Rouault. Later he worked with children at risk in Romania for 9 years before completing a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Counseling at Asbury Theological Seminary. Currently he works in a college mental health center and teaches adjunct in the School of Counseling at Asbury Seminary. In addition, he continues to paint and write. His first book is entitled Miserere Mei: A Journey of Self-Discovery through the Art of Georges Rouault.
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.