Group meditation on Great paintings
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Matthew 13:16
Faith based art deserves an intentional approach in order to understand the complexities of scriptural and theological meaning within and around the art and artist. My friend and mentor, the late Reverend Dr. Ronald Rosenau developed a wonderful and accessible process for viewing and considering faith based art (and really, any art). He named it Eyes to See, Ears to Hear. The class he developed and presented several times is the basis for considering and conversing about the art on this site. I offer it here to you so that you can join me in exploring art of various faith traditions.
The course is presented in several lessons. Each lesson is built upon the previous one, but you can explore each lesson individually as well, to reinforce a concept or refresh yourself with the ideas it presents.
As we go through each lesson, we will explore each work of art using a four step approach. This process works best in group discussion, but can also work individually if you take your time at each step to fully consider the questions we ask at each step.
In step one, we look at a work of art for the first time and ask the (objective) question, “What do you see?” We want to be especially literal when answering this question (as we will explore in the first lesson). Do not include your guesses or personal biases when answering this.
In step two we allow our subjective self to explore the work, and we ask the question, “What do you feel?” Allow the work to impress itself on you, and then express those feelings in your discussion or your writing.
In step three we begin to explore the work more deeply by asking, “What do you wonder about?” This is the time to inquire about the artist, the medium, the time period of the work or the subject matter. At this point we might explore scripture or other writings that have influenced the artist or the viewer of that time period.
Finally, we can express our thoughts about the work, the artist, or the story the work tells as we ask the question, “What do you think?” Be a critic, or explore further the subject matter or artist, and express your thoughts about why the work was made, what the artist is saying to you, and your likes or dislikes about the work.
The lessons are: