A week without chemotherapy has meant a rise in energy level so it was good to get out yesterday. We went the Kelvingrove Art Gallery to see the 12 drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. (That's him on the left). Five hundred years old they are and yet they look as if they have just been produced. Anatomical studies are precise and one is assured remarkably accurate. Figures leap out in their vitality and freshness, especially the rather grotesque study of gypsies robbing an unsuspecting traveller.
I have found this to be the case with much art of a former age. I will never forget the first time I saw a Van Gogh original. My interest in Van Gogh goes back to first year at secondary school. I was never much cop at art but I had a teacher who was a big Van Gogh fan and there were post cards and posters all round his room. I’m not absolutely sure what drew me to Van Gogh. Certainly the figures had a cartoonish quality which I could relate to and his colours seemed to explode from the page. It all seemed to demand my attention. In later years I would hear someone use all of this to argue that Van Gogh was ‘dubious art’. All I knew was that this was the first time paintings had had such an immediate effect on me.
By the time I got to fifth year in school Van Gogh had become one of the most popular and recognisable of artists. Many a bedroom had a ‘Starry Night’ or ‘Sunflowers’ poster and Don Maclean was singing his moving ‘Vincent’. ‘I could have told you Vincent/This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.’
I was in my late forties before I saw the originals in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. As with the Leonardo drawings it was the freshness of the work that amazed me. It would not have been hard to believe that these were straight off the artist’s easel. It was hard to tear myself away not least from the ‘Self Portrait’, Vincent looking stern and stoic against a background of swirling patterns which many take to be symbolic of his state of mind. But it is the eyes that hold you. How could anyone create something so vital and penetrating out of paint on canvas? Simon Schama had a television series called Power Of Art which later became a fascinating book. I knew the power that day.
Jeremiah felt that way when he remembered his God and his ‘compassions’, the ways that God had revealed His love for His people. Calamity had come upon the nation which the prophet felt very deeply at a personal level. He says:
‘I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.’ (Lamentations 3: 19-20)
But then he remembers:
‘Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.‘ (Lamentations 3: 21-24)
The prophet stands before the reality of God, all that He is, all that He has done for His people, all that reveals His love for His people. It is not a distant memory, not merely a tradition passed on, but ‘new every morning.’ It is possible for him to experience the power of God in the midst of his affliction.
This is a challenge to me. Yesterday I experienced the power of art as I did all those years ago in the Musee D’Orsay. It was immediate, arresting, enriching. It is not inconceivable that the great Creator is seeking to grasp me in the same way through His Word. Although let’s be honest, it doesn’t always happen even when we focus on the great promises. Too often the words seem to slide over the brain without any deep impact. But in the end that is up to God. Neither time given or concentration intensified can guarantee the experience we crave. That would mean God can be manipulated. We need to tread the same path as the prophet. It’s not that he is immediately caught up in some wave of spiritual ecstasy. He remembers the Lord’s great love and faithfulness as it has been revealed to His people and he comes to the place where he can say: ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’
This is often where we find ourselves but we wait with confidence in the God who has revealed Hi love for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The compassions of this God will never fail.
