Yesterday's surprise was an accident of providence that forunately I was lucky enough to experience due to a remarkable coincidence of cirucmstances intersecting by pure chance! I was preaching in Fife despite being on holiday because I promised a year ago and I like the folk.It meant passing through St Andrews. And there was an exhibition of paintings by Samuel Peploe the Scottish Colourist artist. So on the way home we stopped to go see.
In one afternoon I saw, enjoyed and digested two masterpieces. The first was a pizza margherita with black olives in Little Italy in St Andrews. One of the best pizzas I've ever had, with iced lemon water and time to savour. Each wedge able to be held and enjoyed without that disappointing wilt towards sogginess in the centre that is often the experience of the dedicated pizza connoisseur.
Then there was Peploe's painting, The Blue and White Teapot. Don't ask me why I think this is a beautiful painting because analysis usually descends into explanation and diminishment. Aesthetic enjoyment, spiritual insight, emotional contentment, paying attention with both sides of the brain - all of these - but for me it's that inexplicable power to command attention, that gently persistent summons to the desultory wandering Sunday afternoon painting spotter, "Stop! Look! See!.
Like spending time with words and text in Lectio Divina, you are dutifully reading, and to be honest, often skimming, and then the voice is heard, the text speaks, and you listen, pay attention, or rather - give attention. Because I'm more and more convinced that in front of great art what is required of us is the willingness to give ourselves to beauty, goodness and truth. That's why I appreciate seats in an art gallery. Time to inhabit space not our own, intentional slow-down against the inner impetus to keep moving, permission to sit in front of a subject so Other that we ourselves are called into question.
God looked on all God created, and is creating, and saw that it was good. Strong echoes of that inward approval and appreciation are felt when we encounter that which addresses us, catches us unawares. I dare say that is the work of the Holy Spirit, leading us into truth, opening us up,to goodness, and silencing our nervous chatter as we encounter the Beautiful. And just in case we get too carried away by aesthetics narrowly conceived, there is the beauty of a perfectly made pizza! No photo of the pizza - by the time I thought of it it was gone!
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