God

I was struck by two versions of God. The first was by a Hispano-Flemish artist (from the 15th century when the Low Countries were under the rule of the Spanish kings). I was blown away by the intense details of this set of 12 paintings...off in a side room from the main corridor in the National Gallery. An tiny angel, for example, collecting the blood of Christ in a crucifixion scene.





One large painting was of the assumption of Mary, being lifted from this earthly dross into the starry heavens.



And in heaven there was God waiting...looking like the Pope with a three tiered crown. An old man looking on...making sure the journey goes well...fingers crossed in a blessing to this Queen of Heaven. Halos of divine power emanating from his head.





Later that day, I was at the Museum of American Art, in an old favorite room dedicated to the paintings of A.P. Ryder. Ryder...such a dark, strong, romantic painter of the late 19th, early 20th century...and in his painting of Jonah...so heavily layered with oil that I had not noticed it before...is God looking at the scene.





The same blessing of the fingers...holding the same sacred globe...but now much more part of the scene, the tossing waves, the black sky, the skirting clouds...and below the counterpart, lost in the waves, Jonah...





his counterpart in a sense. Pleading to be saved from the broiling sea. In this scene, God appears less as a ruler, a pope, an emperor, and more as a force, participating in the world, interacting with his human creation.

I was struck by the sweep of time and geography separating these painters yet, both the them in a way, struggling to represent a theological text with oil, brush, and color.

Location:Washington, District of Columbia