Head of Christ

(The Head of Christ by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1606-1669,
Dutch painter, printmaker, and draughtsman)

One of the more challenging subjects to put on canvas must surely be Jesus of Nazareth. There are no actual images of him, likenesses made in his lifetime; and yet, there are many images of him, as envisioned by various artists across the centuries.

The Christian faith teaches that Jesus Christ is both Son of God and Son of Man. The artists point to his divinity by adding a shining halo, and to his nature as man by drawing a beard and shoulder-length hair. Both depictions are so familiar that we would recognize him in pictures of almost any setting.

In this painting of Jesus the man, Rembrandt applied the traditional characteristics in composing his face. (His model was a young man from the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam.) But his rendering makes the image new. Rembrandt leads us to a richer understanding of his subject. A skilled portraitist is also a biographer.

HEAD OF CHRIST

What he sees he takes in.
Every human sorrow
fuels the fire that burns
low and steady
in his open heart.

He looked at the leper like this,
imagining the man’s life
before he changed it.

He looked at the centurion and saw
what it must be for a father
to watch his child die.

He looked at the woman by the well,
saw her five husbands, and sent her home
with a promise; at the woman caught
in adultery, and did not condemn her;
at the woman weeping at his feet — knowing
she knew him, who walked the dusty earth
unrecognized — and honored her extravagance.

One might live long
just to be looked at once this way,
judged, forgiven, and blessed,
taken in, recognized — a prayer answered
in eyes that meet longing and assuage it:
“Lord, remember me
when you come into your kingdom.”

~ Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, born 1949, American poet and essayist, from Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt's Religious Paintings

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Abraham and Isaac

(The Angel Stopping Abraham from Sacrificing
Isaac to God by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1606-1669,
Dutch painter, printmaker, and draughtsman)

The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the most difficult to understand and accept.

As told in the Hebrew Bible and in the Christian Old Testament, the story begins when God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the only son born to him and Sarah. But before Abraham completes the act, an angel calls out, “Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do nothing to him. I know now that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.” Then Abraham “looked about and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bush. He went and took it, and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.”

What is the meaning of this story?

First, it is a test of Abraham’s trust in God, who had condemned human sacrifice before. It is also the final and conclusive instruction against the offering of human sacrifices to the gods, a common practice among the tribes around the Jews at the time.

Rembrandt made this painting in 1663. It is one of his many Biblical histories where he used as models persons he met in the flourishing Jewish quarter of Amsterdam.

“The psychological truth in Rembrandt’s paintings,” wrote Kenneth Clark in Civilization, “goes beyond that of any other artist who has ever lived. Of course they are masterpieces of sheer picture-making. . . . We used to be told that painting shouldn’t compete with literature. Well, perhaps not in its initial stages. Or, rather, the literary element should not obtrude itself till it has taken the right shape. But when form and content are one, what a heavenly bonus this kind of human revelation can be.”

The first of the two poems below was written and put to music by Leonard Cohen, a Canadian poet and singer and the son of a rabbi. Many of his earlier verses and songs (see the post of September 18) are inspired by the Scriptures.

THE STORY OF ISAAC

The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, “I've had a vision
and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told.”

So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller,
the lake a lady's mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
Broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,
forgive me if I inquire,
“Just according to whose plan?”
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.

~ Leonard Cohen, born 1934, Canadian poet, novelist, singer, and songwriter

To listen to Leonard Cohen perform this song, click on to this link (you may have to cut and paste):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wE6lV0kPcs

The second poem is inspired by Rembrandt’s painting. It provides an additional explanation for this story — the Christian view that this thwarted sacrifice of an only son prefigures the sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God, on the Cross at Cavalry.

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

He really meant to do it.
All it took was an angel’s merest touch
to stop him, but the boy’s hands
were tied, the father’s fingers
wrapped around his jaw
(perhaps to smother him — one paltry act
of mercy before the fatal slice?).

What kind of God would require
such appalling fidelity?
What kind of father could bear
to imagine the blade
leaving its trail of red
in the tender skin of a throat
no beard has covered?

What would it take?

What must be the magnitude
of a love that would go this far?
The look in Abraham’s eye
is crazed. The angel’s message
relieves him (though all his life
some madness will haunt him,
and Sarah will follow his steps
with darkened eyes).

You don’t have to do this
any more. Another father
will take your place
Another son will be led to slaughter.
The promise will be fulfilled,
Israel’s seed will be planted.
Let him grow old and die.

~ Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, born 1949, American poet and essayist, from Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt's Religious Paintings

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Starry Night

(Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch
Post-Impressionist painter)

Van Gogh painted this scene from the window of his room in the mental asylum at Saint-Rémy thirteen months before his death.

At least three poets have written about this most familiar image. Each speaks from a different point of view. All empathize with the artist’s anguish.

Anne Sexton puts herself in the mind of the artist. Later, she would make the same tragic decision as van Gogh, and take her own life. Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, on the other hand, stands outside the asylum and looks up at the celestial wonders. Don McLean writes an elegiac tribute to the artist. He put the verses to music, creating a hit song across the world.

To listen to McLean’s performance, accompanied by a slide show of van Gogh's paintings, click on this link (you may have to cut and paste it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OtK_sP6_fM&feature=related


THE STARRY NIGHT

“That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.”
~ Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

~ Anne Sexton (1928-1974), American poet


THE STARRY NIGHT

What laughter booms across the night sky
from the bellies of heavenly beings? Few hear it,
but sometimes the breath of heaven curls like a bard’s beard
and what has only twinkled begins to beat and throb.

Behind it all a drumbeat calls over the mountains.
The villagers think it’s thunder, those who are not asleep.
Only a few remain awake to see the starry, starry night
and witness what they can barely imagine how to tell.

Some nights the roar breaks the silence. One was there
when it happened, and saw, and tried to tell the secret,
and died young. How much of life he gave for this
we cannot know. We know only that something precious
as nard* was poured out at the foot of these hills,
the blue, the yellow bought with solitary tears.

~ Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, born 1949, American poet and essayist

(*nard - costly aromatic balsam)


VINCENT

Starry, starry night,
Paint your palette blue and gray,
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
They did not know how,
Perhaps they’ll listen now.

Starry, starry night,
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue,
Morning fields of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
They did not know how,
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true,
And when no hope was left in sight,
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night,
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.
Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in ragged clothes,
The silver thorn, the bloody rose
lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

And now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They’re not listening still,
Perhaps they never will.

~ Don McLean, born 1945, American singer and songwriter

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest