Lavendar Mist by Jackson Pollack, one of my favorite iconic paintings. I call it "painting in tongues." There is something incredibly beautiful about this painting and for some reason it reminds me of of what it feels like to worship in the Spirit. And tonight is a good night to pray and worship in the Spirit.
Actually, this is taken from a photo of the briar patch. If you look closely, you can see at left center the tip of the ear of a member of the family Leporidae, of the genera Br_er. A better picture can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sylvilagus_audubonii.jpg
Pollock tried to destroy beauty but ended up creating it anyway as in this painting, this was the belief of Hans Rookmaaker, a Dutch art historian and author of Modern Art and the Death of a Culture.
What is going on at this table - I don't know whether to laugh (which I did a lot reading these comments) or cry (this is art!). There is a story to the painting in that years ago I would walk through the National Gallery of Art (East Wing) here in Washington and look at the stuff hanging up there and shake my head, why? Why is this stuff hanging here? Why is it worth millons? I don't get it.
So instead of continuing to whine about it, I decided to go on a long-term journey to "understand Modern Art." That stuff had to be hanging there for some reason and I thought I should find it out before poo pooing it as inferior and stupid.
Off I went, reading everything I could, cramming over a hundred years of Modern Art history into - well, I'm still doing it. After a while, I began to emerge from it not only beginning to grasp what where it was coming from, but seeing how it could also be expressed in music (Tangled Up In Blue).
This painting by Jackson Pollack was one of the very first "ah ha" moments for me in coming to appreciate "modern art" (and finding out that there are many artists I have now come to love and others that I can't stand - but now I can pontificate at great length over at another table why I can't stand them). But Pollack after he started doing his drip paintings was one of the first - when I actually saw the transition from his early abstract/expressionist (whatever it was) to the drip paintings, the color, the emotion, the drama, the expression, and the possibility of being exhuberantly free while at the same time following rules of form (it is on a canvas) just blew my mind. Lavendar Mist was the one I saw and it's become an old friend. I have found over the years that it has become like an iconic painting to me, a very spiritual painting that for some reason - I don't know why - leads me back to Jesus. It's beautiful and yes, it's possible that Farmer Macgreggor could be hiding in there somewhere ...
Some time I'll tell you all the story about BabyBlue meets Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans .... ;-)
I was trying to find a way to explain it. Excellent worship is art. And excellent art can be excellent worship - especially when the Holy Spirit inspires the art, which may be more often then we realize. What is interesting is when so-called "secular" art (especially modern art) seems to stumble into the Lord, almost by accident. It gives credence to the Scripture, "you didn't choose Me, I chose you ..." (John 15:16) and the artist can accept it or spend a lifetime running, as Pollack evidently did until he crashed.
9 comments:
Sorry, but need a little help with that picture. Just a clue what we are looking at?
Lavendar Mist by Jackson Pollack, one of my favorite iconic paintings. I call it "painting in tongues." There is something incredibly beautiful about this painting and for some reason it reminds me of of what it feels like to worship in the Spirit. And tonight is a good night to pray and worship in the Spirit.
bb
Actually, this is taken from a photo of the briar patch. If you look closely, you can see at left center the tip of the ear of a member of the family Leporidae, of the genera Br_er. A better picture can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sylvilagus_audubonii.jpg
Always "a good night to pray!"
Pollock tried to destroy beauty but ended up creating it anyway as in this painting, this was the belief of Hans Rookmaaker, a Dutch art historian and author of Modern Art and the Death of a Culture.
Thanks for the clue. My guess was it was a picture of dry skin, magnified 1000 times or so.
What is going on at this table - I don't know whether to laugh (which I did a lot reading these comments) or cry (this is art!). There is a story to the painting in that years ago I would walk through the National Gallery of Art (East Wing) here in Washington and look at the stuff hanging up there and shake my head, why? Why is this stuff hanging here? Why is it worth millons? I don't get it.
So instead of continuing to whine about it, I decided to go on a long-term journey to "understand Modern Art." That stuff had to be hanging there for some reason and I thought I should find it out before poo pooing it as inferior and stupid.
Off I went, reading everything I could, cramming over a hundred years of Modern Art history into - well, I'm still doing it. After a while, I began to emerge from it not only beginning to grasp what where it was coming from, but seeing how it could also be expressed in music (Tangled Up In Blue).
This painting by Jackson Pollack was one of the very first "ah ha" moments for me in coming to appreciate "modern art" (and finding out that there are many artists I have now come to love and others that I can't stand - but now I can pontificate at great length over at another table why I can't stand them). But Pollack after he started doing his drip paintings was one of the first - when I actually saw the transition from his early abstract/expressionist (whatever it was) to the drip paintings, the color, the emotion, the drama, the expression, and the possibility of being exhuberantly free while at the same time following rules of form (it is on a canvas) just blew my mind. Lavendar Mist was the one I saw and it's become an old friend. I have found over the years that it has become like an iconic painting to me, a very spiritual painting that for some reason - I don't know why - leads me back to Jesus. It's beautiful and yes, it's possible that Farmer Macgreggor could be hiding in there somewhere ...
Some time I'll tell you all the story about BabyBlue meets Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans .... ;-)
bb
Jackson Pollack = "painting in tongues"
Oh PRICELESS. That's got to be the best line I've read on any blog, ever.
Just love it!!!
Thanks BB :-)
I was trying to find a way to explain it. Excellent worship is art. And excellent art can be excellent worship - especially when the Holy Spirit inspires the art, which may be more often then we realize. What is interesting is when so-called "secular" art (especially modern art) seems to stumble into the Lord, almost by accident. It gives credence to the Scripture, "you didn't choose Me, I chose you ..." (John 15:16) and the artist can accept it or spend a lifetime running, as Pollack evidently did until he crashed.
bb
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