Reflection for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the 16th of July 2023. Written by Philip Harvey for the pew notes of St Peter’s Eastern Hill, Melbourne.
Vincent Van Gogh made many paintings and drawings of the Sower throughout his comparatively short sunburst of creative life. It had vital meaning for him, starting with copies of Jean-François Millet’s renowned painting, but soon breaking out into all sorts of original versions. His output was prodigal and prodigious.
Reception of Van Gogh’s art once focussed on his stylistic revolutions, his expressionist impressionism, and his mental health. In recent years the focus has shifted to his vision of humanity in creation, the challenges of working people, his religious vocation.
Van Gogh started out with a calling to pastoral ministry. He was led by the Spirit to work in grim mining districts, but an intense personality and social missteps meant his ministry was a disaster. Meanwhile, he was testing his skills as an artist, working beside dedicated Dutch painters and developing rapidly. When the crunch came in his parish work, Van Gogh landed up in Paris, at the very centre of a French art phenomenon. He may have left Reformed clergy life behind, but his calling became very clear and his devotion, fervent. By the time Vincent winds up in Provence, it’s all happening.
His Sower is always striding across a tilled open field. Nothing falls on the path for birds to eat, or on rocky ground, or among thorns where it will be choked. Van Gogh knew his Scripture, what was sown on good soil “is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” (Matthew 13: 23) Van Gogh is the very picture of someone who finds his talent and turns it into a prolific gift offered to others, regardless of cost. Whether with overtly religious subjects, or anything else he created, his religious calling is close at hand. After all, what’s religion?
It
sounds Romantic, the penniless master who only sold one painting in his life.
It isn’t Romantic, it is the fulfilment of a calling to spread the word by the
means he knows best, in the belief his work will reach others and change them, help
make them see. Psalm 119 in its microcosm verses 107-109 is one way of
appreciating the life and example of this pastor turned artist: “I am severely
afflicted; give me life, O Lord, according to your word. Accept my offerings of
praise, O Lord, and teach me your ordinances. I hold my life in my hand continually,
but I do not forget your law.”
No comments:
Post a Comment