Reflections on Painting, 12.10.13

Before today I never heard of the Antwerp Mannerists but the samples of their work posted below give me opportunity to wax rhapsodic about painting. The exact name of the artist(s) is unknown but their work is characterized by elaborate ornamentation on religious themes. These two paintings are (top to botom), the Queen of Sheba giving gifts to Solomon, and King David receiving holy water from Bethlehem. These photos fail to capture the intracracy, electricity, and energy of these pieces so let me describe what's going on here. 

Imagine taking five to ten strands of fine sable hair and dipping them in oil based paint. The unwieldliness of such a tiny brush would scare off most painters. But in the hands of these Mannerists they work magic.

If you've ever seen a good magician (and I hope you have), you've probably said, "How'd they do that?" This is what I said over a hundred times in the Art Institute Of Chicago today, and especially when seeing these two paintings. They're narrow, only about 18" tall, and relatively small compared to most museum pieces (see photo of room below).

These were painted in the 1500s but the colors still pop out after 500 years. They glow, they sing, they invoke awe and majesty and wonder. One of my favorite Christian writers said the best proof for the existence of God was a soprano singing Handel. I feel this way about these paintings. For all the quandaries posed by the problem of evil, my inner atheist is silenced by great art. And it's not necessarily the subject matter; I have no strong feelings about the queen of Sheba or holy water, but the intricacy,  the attention to detail, and the painstaking labor of love the artist invested reach me in the depths in ways philosophy does not.

In the beginning God created...making humans in his image. And being God's image bearers means we too create. This is humanity at its finest, using a few sable hairs and oil paint and transfixing viewers with beauty for generations.