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| colourlovers.com |
So far this month
we have had a variety of art and artists leading us into deeper reflection on
spirituality. But today I’d like to delve more deeply into the way in which art
can be therapeutic for both the artist and the spectator.
I was moved to
consider this angle by a quote from Thomas Kelly, who has been called a Quaker
mystic. But his was no comfortable contemplative life; he sought academic
respectability in the early 1930s but had a crushing failure when he suffered
an anxiety attack while defending his PhD dissertation at Harvard. He was
denied another chance and sank to a low, almost suicidal level before having a
spiritual experience. His reflections on the mindset of trying to ‘have it all’
still apply to us in the 21st century:
Kelly compares the voices within that pull us
in multiple directions to a variety of selves that simultaneously reside within
us. As Kelly describes it, "There is the civic self, the parental self,
the financial self, the religious self, the society self, the professional
self, the literary self." (Strained, Breathless, and Hurried: Learning from the Life
of Thomas R. Kelly. Chad Thralls May 1, 2011 http://www.friendsjournal.org/3011052/ )
And what is worse, is that these different voices never cooperate and so
we are pushed to exhaustion by trying to reconcile the various demands of our
voices:
“We are not integrated. We are distraught. We feel honestly the pull of
many obligations and try to fulfill them all. And we are unhappy, uneasy,
strained, oppressed and fearful we shall be shallow. For over the margins of
life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we
know we are passing by. Strained by the mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we
are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there
is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a
life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into
that Center!” (Thomas
Kelly, Source: A
Testament of Devotion)
Creating joy in
our lives – as in the meditation words we heard a few minutes ago – can help us
to find a richer, deeper life. And many artists do just that, they listen to
that whisper, that faint call…and for many of them, this is a leap of faith. As Grace Paley observed about the art of
writing, “You write from what you know, but you write into what you don’t
know.”
And I suppose that goes along with the quote from the artist Terry
Lee Getz: “I will risk
plumbing unknown depths that release and fulfill my spirit, and I’ve arrived at
a point in my life, creative or otherwise, where the ‘unknown’ is my preferred
orientation.” (“Embracing the Unknown” in Siminaitis, Kaleidoscope, 2007, 126)
One definition of spirituality is “when we open ourselves up to the goodness of the universe and
respond to it with awe and wonder and love.”
And Veronica Brady also uses
that term ‘open’ when she says that
“Genuine spirituality, like art, is open and
dynamic...both are the hope of a world so badly in need of transformation” (http://www.ru.org/81brady.html).
I’ve quoted artists
about how they make themselves vulnerable and open, but of course there are two
sides to any piece of art, the one who creates it and the one who beholds it.
It can be transformative for both artist and spectator.
Oscar Wilde affirms the place of openness for
both when he says,
“The temperament to which Art appeals … is the temperament of
receptivity. That is all. If [one] approaches a work of
art with any desire to exercise authority over it and the artist, [they]
approach it in such a spirit that [they] cannot receive any artistic impression
from it at all. And the more completely [they] can suppress [their] own silly
views, [their] own foolish prejudices, [their] own absurd ideas of what Art
should be, or should not be, the more likely [they are] to understand and
appreciate the work of art in question.” (https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/08/27/oscar-wilde-on-art/)
I was searching for a few
examples of artists through whose work we could explore receptivity today, and
I have found three very different ones who come from our own faith tradition.
In many ways, perhaps incidentally or deliberately, our fourth principle – a
free and responsible search for truth and meaning – and our seventh principle –
our part in the interdependent web of all existence – play significant roles in
their creative genius.
Nathaniel Currier
First, the very successful work
in the 1830s of a lithographer whose name is usually linked with another – Unitarian Nathaniel Currier, who along
with James Merritt Ives produced the kinds of pictures that come to mind in the
song “Sleigh Bells”, where the lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with
you is like a picture print of Currier and Ives.
But what made Currier so
popular across the nation was not bucolic winter scenes, but disaster pictures!
His prints depicting dramatic and newsworthy incidents resonated with
American’s growing middle class of the 1830s and both fed and reflected the
anxieties and sensibilities of that time…as scholar Genoa Shepley says, “in a way that attended to the
expectations, hopes, and fears of a newly minted audience of consumers of
visual culture.”
(By Which Melancholy Occurrence: The Disaster Prints of Nathaniel
Currier, 1835–1840
Fall 2015, Genoa Shepley, Independent Scholar http://journalpanorama.org/by-which-melancholy-occurrence-the-disaster-prints-of-nathaniel-currier-1835-1840/)
Shepley observes that
“Nathaniel Currier lived in
tumultuous times. His own life trajectory…arced across one of the most
economically, socially, and politically volatile periods in American
history—one marked by financial downturns, military conflicts, and massive
physical and class dislocations as the tottering republic found its balance and
matured into a modern industrial society. Currier’s seventy-five years on
this earth also witnessed the advent of technological marvels—steam-powered
ships and railroads—that remodeled the topography of the country and radically
altered the flow of people within it. Such transformations brought with them
the possibility of catastrophic conflict and sudden, grisly death on a grand
scale.”
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| springfieldmuseums.org |
And so one of his first
pictures which drew the American people’s attention to life in an urban
environment – as people flocked to fast-growing cities – is “Ruins of the Merchant’s Exchange N.Y. after
the Destructive Conflagration of Decbr. 16
& 17, 1835." This lithograph was issued initially in black and white and later in
a hand-colored version—and appeared within days of the fire, selling thousands
of copies”. Shepley says that one message to which the spectator of this image
might be receptive is one of self-discipline, in the depiction of sober, proper
behavior by onlookers and workers in the face of crisis. Many young people in particular, who
were noew to city life, would see this picture and understand and internalize
the norms of reaction to such disasters.
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| springfieldmuseums.org |
“Five years later Nathaniel
Currier’s lithographic print Awful
Conflagration of the Steam Boat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Eveg,
Jany 13th
1840, by which Melancholy Occurrence, over 100 Persons Perished," "appeared in record time after the
disaster and was delivered through the uncommon distribution mode of a news
extra.” Its appeal to the spectator is one we all can identify with, the desire
to see a sensational event safely from a distance. It puts the spectator
farther away from the ship and closer to the desperate passengers who are in
the water.
Shepley explains that attraction
to sensationalism of spectators at the time was "due to Victorian attitudes
toward death and dying. Americans were preoccupied with their bodies and their
souls in this period, as shown by many songs, poems, sermons, and novels about
death and how to deal with it" that flooded the consumer market.
Maybe rising mortality rates
help to explain this preoccupation; but "an awareness of the consequences of
pandemics, natural disasters, and large-scale accidents resulting from new
transportation technologies may have dominated the public mind: the density of
city life made large-scale death from a common source, like fires, trainwrecks,
or ship sinkings, more possible.”
And so Currier’s picture of the wreck
of the Lexington , and that of
an earlier shipwreck, "The Dreadful
Wreck of the Mexico on Hempstead Beach. Jany. 2nd 1837," may have served
as an image for "remembering not
only the life and death of its victims, but the life and death of the viewer." The nation was changing at such a rapid rate that the insecurities Americans
faced were stoked by these images.
However, Shepley says that
“These same Americans evinced a stubborn faith in progress and oft-professed
determination to overcome adversity”, and the images from his lithographs gave
voice to their “fears,
ideals, and even secret pleasures.” This statement made me think
about those voices that Thomas Kelly described as competing for our
attention…the receptivity of those Americans who viewed those disaster scenes
with curiosity, fear, horror, who were living in times they’d never imagined,
where change came fast and furious – kind of like ours in the 21st
century. And this example made me wonder about what we now use art for and I
think we have the same need as those people moving into cities and trying to
comprehend this new landscape; when we use – and create - social media images,
the new art on Instagram and the photos we post, where we color in or insert
our faces into another background, or post yet another video of cats – are we
not in some way trying to make sense of our lives? Somewhat in awe of how
amazing life is and trying to keep up and learn to adapt. Not so different from Currier’s devoted
spectators.
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| brightok.net |
N.C. Wyeth
And now on to the patriarch
of an amazing family of artists, the Wyeths. N.C. Wyeth described himself as ‘unconventional, democratic, free and careless of
formalities, contemptuous of restraint, and with a wayward enthusiasm.’ His
many illustrations and beautifully detailed oil paintings made him one of the
best-known artists of the 20th century. The family were members of
the First Unitarian Society of Wilmington Delaware. (Thoreau and Wyeth: Born Under the Same Sign http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thoreau-wyeth-born-sign/)
His son Andrew Wyeth was born exactly 100 years to the
day after the birth of Henry David Thoreau, who N.C. Wyeth considered his hero.
It’s said that his wife Carolyn caused him to reassess Thoreau, who he
initially described as just another ‘amateur naturalist’.
"His long-held wish to publish an anthology of Thoreau’s
writings finally came true in 1936 as the illustrated Men of Concord and Some Others, as
Portrayed in the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Francis H.
Allen."
In the picture above, Thoreau is the youngster in the bowler and
Emerson the middle-aged man in the top hat. The preface of the book says: “Wyeth was a lifelong admirer of Thoreau, whose spirit has become a
part of him. His work for this book, therefore, is a tribute from an
intellectual disciple to an author who has had an important formative influence
on his character and work.”
“NC taught Andrew to love Thoreau’s writings, and his own
work displays his love of nature." You can hear this particularly in his written
description of what he saw looking out of a window: “My imagination is suddenly
whipped into an almost exalted appreciation of the magnificence of the little
isolated and unrelated scene before me, and I am astounded at its vast beauty
and its sublime importance, and am made to realize, in one poignant spasm, that
before my eyes exists the profoundest beauty, the greatest glamour and
magnificence possible for human sight and spiritual pleasure. “
(Thoreau and Wyeth: Born Under the Same Sign http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thoreau-wyeth-born-sign/)
Wyeth's admiration for Thoreau is most
visible in this painting from 1933, "Walden Pond revisited," so unlike his other
lifelike illustrations. Its details include Thoreau’s beanfield, the pond, the
railroad, the Unitarian Church steeple, and the town of Concord.
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| trackstar.4teachers.org |
Anyone who grew up looking at wonderful illustrations
from The Deerslayer, Kidnapped or Robinson Crusoe will no doubt remember
the awe those pictures inspired, and how they helped to imprint the images of
those stories in our memories.
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| seussville.com |
Dr. Seuss
And finally we come to another illustrator of children’s books who is
much beloved in the memories of adults, and who, like Wyeth, cares about the
natural world and also what we humans do to it: Theodore
Geisel (DR Seuss).
This congregation has
benefitted from the sermons of Dr Greg Brock about Dr Seuss, and the messages
of his art and stories which resonate with the Unitarian Universalist
imagination and reflect its values. His art is concerned with human behavior
but through the weirdest non-human characters!
The Sneetches, which we saw
earlier, tells us that “race
and ethnicity need not be dividing lines in our society, and that we can
coexist peacefully, regardless of our external differences.” (www. seussville.com) It was published
in 1961 and its message is still as needed as ever.
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| seussville.com |
One of the
favorite stories is The Lorax, which Dr Seuss called a cautionary tale, about the interconnectedness of the things that
live in an ecosystem. We can
pretty much sum up its moral in this warning from the Lorax himself:
"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get
better. It's not."
Geisel never claimed to know what inspired him in
the creation of his stories and characters – just like the quote earlier, he
plumbed the unknown depths of his imagination – but he did base 2 of his
characters on himself: the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch. And it is his explanation of the origin of How
the Grinch Stole Christmas that I’d like to share with you.
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| seussville.com |
In December 1957, just after
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! appeared, Seuss explained the origins of the
story to Redbook magazine:
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| seussville.com |
“I was brushing my teeth on
the morning of the 26th of last December when I noted a very Grinchish
countenance in the mirror. It was Seuss! Something had gone wrong with
Christmas, I realized, or more likely with me. So I wrote the story about my
sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I could rediscover something about Christmas
that obviously I’d lost.”
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| bashobananatree.wordpress.com/tag/christmas |
This article was
accompanied by the self-portrait you see here, of “Geisel looking into his
bathroom mirror and the Grinch looking back. Seuss told many variations on this
story, but he always mentions his identification with the Grinch, once
describing him as a “nasty anti-Christmas character that was really myself.” http://www.seussville.com/?section=home&isbn=&catalogID=&eventID=#/author
Dr Seuss once wrote,
“Children’s reading and children’s thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which
this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion,
writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential
for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.” (www.seussville.com)
The writer
and broadcaster John Berger: “every image embodies a way of seeing…the more
imaginative the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist’s
experience of the visible.” (Ways of Seeing, 1972, 10)
We can see in these examples today how the mysteries of the human
condition, both good and bad, inspire artists in their work, and give us
greater insight into what it means to be human and what we can learn from being
human.
In doing this as Erna Cooper says, "Art is an equalizer of the high and low in society, a medium through
which all of us may
share the same subjective sphere, linking
what was formerly the ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ and erasing the boundaries
between us."
The philosopher Alain de Boton
writes:
“Art can teach us to be more just towards ourselves as we endeavor to
make the best of our circumstances: a job we do not always love, the
imperfections of middle age, our frustrated ambitions and our attempts to stay
loyal to irritable but loved spouses. Art can do the opposite of glamorizing
the unattainable; it can reawaken us to the genuine merit of life as we’re
forced to lead it. In art…base and unimpressive
experiences are converted into something noble and fine. We hunger for artworks that
will compensate for our inner fragilities and help return us to a viable
mean... “
(https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/25/art-as-therapy-alain-de-botton-john-armstrong)
A final quote from Veronica
Brady: "Art reminds us
that life is stranger, more beautiful, demanding, joyous and painful than
common sense knows."
In a world that so badly needs
transformation, needs the freedom to search for truth and meaning, needs to
embrace the interconnectedness of all existence, I believe that “Art holds out the promise of
inner wholeness.”
Gaye W. Ortiz
1-2016
