St. Petersburg, Russia
For many years I have been awed by the visual creative genius of the Dutch master Rembrandt. Some twenty five years ago while in a Saturday flea market in Vienna I had the astounding good fortune of finding fifty three of his copper plate etchings under a pile of clothes on a table by the railroad tracks. I was nearly weak kneed when I realized what I had come across. The feeling must be identical to that which a prospector has when he realizes the rough glassy rock in his hand contains a huge gem-stone quality sapphire that will make him wealthy for life. For forty years I have collected art during my travels and these Rembrandt etchings have always been the center of my visual world. Some of them are now in museums and eventually all of them will be where more people can contemplate Rembrandt’s genius for themselves; not enough people are viewing them in my non-descript suburban house.
Some years ago I became aware of the writings of the beloved Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest who could articulate the challenges of the human experience as well as anyone who has ever put pen to paper. While on retreat nine years ago I read several of his books and found his The Return of the Prodigal Son to be stunning in its clarity and relevance to my own spiritual journey. He opens this nurturing text with a transparent description of his own life challenges and how he found a visual metaphor that transformed his life and inspired his writing of this given book. Carefully, he describes his first encounter with Rembrandt’s epic painting of the same title via a poster image of it on the back of a colleague’s office door. This encounter would ultimately lead to his to sitting in a chair in the palatial galleries of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. I knew that one day I too would have to see this painting with my own eyes. Perhaps I would, too, have a defining moment in this same gallery.
I gambled about $4000 on this possibility and have just stood before this epic painting for myself, along with at least half the people on planet earth, or so it seemed. What immediately surprised me about the painting is that it is about four times the size I had expected. I cannot say that I had some kind of epiphany or defining moment but what I did have is another powerful reminder that God has given me the health and substance to be eight time zones from home standing in what is regarded as the greatest museum on earth and experience the fulfillment of a long-standing wish. It was no doubt immature for me to think that I could invoke a spiritual epiphany by recreating the circumstances that were meant for another’s journey, yet I believe something will germinate from my own experience of this visual image of unconditional love.
There are 668 gilded galleries filling the interiors of five palaces from the Tsarist days of vast royal excess. These galleries and their attendant archives contain more that 3.3 million of the world’s most important works of art. I was guided by an articulate Russian woman quite knowledgeable in the visual arts to the one work of art on earth that I wanted to see more than any other. I was even permitted to make about fifteen time exposure photographs of it.
There are four museums on earth that the leaders of the art world consider to be the greatest of the great. I have now been allowed to wander at leisure through the vast halls of three of these. A fleck of paradise has again washed up on the shores of my life, at a great distance from home. Having the good fortune to visit Rembrandt’s house in Amsterdam reinforced my sense of his creative talents. Standing here in the State Hermitage Museum viewing twenty two of his greatest works amplified my appreciation of his abilities immensely. His talent spoke deeply into the psyche of Nouwen, as it has mine.
Nouwen often described his struggles with feeling homeless and unloved. He often spoke of having lived a disciplined life, never having wandered off to a far land to dissipate the family inheritance on riotous living. Yet, he struggled with why he should feel so discomfited and disconnected despite living above reproach. It was while sitting in front of Rembrandt’s evocative canvas that it occurred to Nouwen that he was far more like the eldest son and not like the younger one who strayed from the fold. Somehow his soul connected the dots and as was the case for the elder son in the gospel of Luke, Nouwen was able to gain assurance that he was truly loved by the Father. Nouwen did not have a quick fix but his experience with the Father via the imagery of Rembrandt’s brush set him off on a new direction that brought him into deeper healing of his human condition. It inspired him to write the most helpful book left to us as part of Nouwen’s legacy.
In several weeks I will be on retreat in the very same Benedictine refuge I was in nine years ago. I have been directed to read several of Nouwen’s books including The Return of the Prodigal Son. Perhaps it is appropriate that I would be reading this here in St. Petersburg after having just viewed the great painting of the same name. Perhaps while on retreat the dots will connect for me. It just may be that like Nouwen, my dots are scattered across about eleven time zones and may take some time to connect. Perhaps the physical journey across the world to St. Petersburg is preliminary to an even greater journey I will make in my old Toyota to a place in the Appalachian Mountains where I may experience the ultimate fleck of paradise washing onto my shores - a true conscious awareness of God in my little life. Suddenly $4000 seems pretty trivial as the price of admission.
Eyes have not seen, ears have not seen, the heart of man has not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment