It’s a mountaintop experience, in any event. Mountaintops are isolated and can be scary. They involve change and challenge. Are we transfigured when we become more like God? Do we use that to help transform the world? Can we act as agents of God if we do become more like God? And does being more like God mean we become filled with love?
These apostles were startled by what they saw. Peter seems quickly inspired. What we know is that their lives were changed by what they witnessed – a kind of beatific vision.
Here are two Russian icons each with a slightly different view of the incidental aspects of the scene. And each iconographer has a very different “hand”. Notice how the apostles differ in their postures and the wonderful “rock work” – how the mountain and rocks are drawn – one more securely organized and other quite free.
A third icon, I think the loveliest of the three, has a slightly more intimate conversation going on. Here the image is more “oriental” in feel and the color palette very muted.
A fourth Orthodox image is from St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt Sinai – another mountaintop. This apsidal mosaic is far more stylized. I’m charmed by the image of Peter “hanging” over the edge of the picture.
Far into the future we have Bellini, Venetian master, who gives us an elegiac vision. It’s got all the necessary parts, but we can “imagine” this scene with his clear light and splendid pastoral setting. We can almost “walk into” the space. That’s something I want to do, Bellini invites us in, but it is a startling scene. Am I ready? Can I really stand becoming more love-filled? Could I stand looking at this Transfiguration?
Forgive my questions here, I ask you. I do not know much of anything, but I know one thing. I just want to love this God who shows us this transfigured beauty.
15 comments:
Thank you Davis for providing this visual devotional experience. As a person who had no art education, it is helpful to have a guide to show me how these art works can help me to love our Lord even more.
Thanks Brian!!
That's the whole point, isn't it? Sacred art is at its best intended to bring one into a closer communion with the divine. For the artist, that means a special kind of struggle and this can be the case also for the worshipper.
Beautiful, beautiful post. I agree with Brian about the quality of the devotional experience and the important of the artistic guidance.
In the "muted" third Russian icon and in the Bellini, my eye is drawn to the "black hole" or gap or absence in the solid "rock" of the physical mountain.
Am I reading too much Lacan? But this frightening manifestation (or lack of "manifestation") is suggesting to me the lack that is at the root of human desire for Lacan.
The Christian tradition has always been so at home with the absence of God -- until recently, unfortunately, when a blind positivity has replaced the sense of our human frailty. Isn't the gap or lack in some way most manifest when we do experience the presence of God in the most transfigured way? It seems as though Peter's response, for instance, was almost comically misguided, and incommensurate?
What do you make of those "holes"?
Very observant Janet! Yes, I find the black holes evidence of our need to be filled - & showing the gaps - the dark voids in human experience. Also in a sense they are very secret places not ready to be manifested.
Oh goody! I'm not out in the tullyweeds!
It seems important that the black holes relate to the "solid rock" of the physical universe on which we stand -- or lie sprawled out upsidedown! As a commentary upon its (only relative) "substantiality" in relationship to the fullness of being of the transfigured Reality, perhaps...?
I especially see the secretness you refer to in the Bellini. Like Augustine in the Confessions when he tells about going around to every created THING in the universe and asking, "Are you my God?" And they all say, "No, we are not. We point to the one who made us." So finally Augustine has to turn away from the entire created world and retreat into the deepest recesses of his own heart, where he finds in a blinding vision, the I AM THAT I AM.
Janet you're wonderful!
Davis, I grabbed one of your images and commented on my blog. Your post becomes more appropo as the week progresses with a conversation about Beatific Vision - not a topic I was very well read in. Thanks for the great meditation.
Off the topic. We Russian Orthodox bring baskets of grapes, apples and fresh cut flowers to church for blessing for the Feast of Transfiguration.
Today it is interpreted as the Russian Thanksgiving for Harvest since our date of observance is 6/19 August, when in many parts of Russia the harvest is over, and the cold breath of winter is beginning once again to be felt.
It subsumes the earlier Roman Festival held in honour of the goddess Pomona whose attribute is the apple...and who was honoured by apples and flowers at the same time of year. I gather the apples were carried East with the Faith.
St. Dorothy's attributes are apples and flowers, and tie in with Transfiguration.
I am already preparing my basket for bringing apples and grapes for blessing before the start of the Liturgy on 19 August.
The kontak and tropar for the Feast are like verbal icons, as clear and concise and beautiful as those chosen to illustrate this posting.
My favourite is the one from the Novgorod School.
Further comment.
The 'black hole' in Mount of Transfiguration is traditonally meant to evoke the Cave of the Nativity. But I like the interpretations presented above, as well.
Thanks aleksandr, for reminding me about the cave of the Nativity my memory isn't what it might be. There are so many ways of interpreting iconography - so many possibilities.
I've thought a good deal about the Transfiguration and how - to my eyes - it represents a "showing" or manifestation of the Godhead to the apostles in a way that is completed after the Resurrection.
This beautiful blog entry and the wise and learned comments (and other commentary via links...) are far beyond my experience, so I do appreciate it all very much, I'm also in awe.
If I have anything to contribute here, it's to describe what my own experience has provided me with in the form of awe in real mountains; I find that on the way up, I "dwell" on my own issues and thoughts, but something happens at the top (or the mid-point of the hike) and on the way down, I really feel empty of my own thoughts and worries; I experience the sights and sounds and other sensations with an immediacy I rarely have otherwise. Everything seems to have been put in perspective, and my various agendas don't seem to be important anymore.
I figured, given my handle here, I should at least share that.
Bless you.
Aleksandr,
Could you fill us in on how St. Dorothy fits with the Feast of the Transfiguration?
And "the kontak and tropar" -- are these the icons used for this Feast? Or the fruits and flowers?
I am blown away by "the cave of the Nativity"! Wow.
Hi JLB
The kondak and tropar are anthems that are sung on each of the greater feasts. The ones for the Transfiguration are succinct and beautiful in brevity, like simple icons.
St Dorothy is not related to the Transfiguration, at least in our tradition...but her attributes in art are apples and flowers. She dates from 316 AD or so.
Thanks! (Nice avatar.)
Post a Comment