Luceat!

I was informed that the topic of this blog has turned toward literature. However, it seems that my gentleman companions have already expounded upon the sublime realities revealed by two of the five titles on my “Favorite Reads of My Life Thus Far” list. Therefore, in retaliation, (and because I wrote the following ten days ago but was unable to post it as I, in my stupidity, forgot my password) will write on something completely different.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent five glorious hours in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Of the thousands of pieces that could have captured my attention during my brief visit, I found myself lost for at least an hour in the world of Jan Van Eyck, a Netherlandish artist and iconographer, and the “Father” of the “Netherlandish Diptychs.” In the 1300 and 1400’s, a movement known as the “Modern Devotion” swept through the Netherlands which encouraged lay people to spend time in private contemplation in their home. As an aid to this time of private prayer, families would commission a diptych, consisting of two tablet-shaped panels usually joined by a center hinge, to be created to offer inspiration for meditation. At this time, it was customary for one panel to feature the Blessed Mother, or some scene from the crucifixion, while the other would show the patron, posed in a pious manner, contemplating the scene displayed on the other side. Diptychs were generally small and portable and could be kept in a drawer or some other small container, and then set up on a table during times of mediation.

One diptych by Michel Sittow in particular captured my attention. Created near the year 1515, the left panel of the diptych offered a portrayal of the Blessed Virgin Mary, holding the Christ-child in her lap as if seated at table. The second panel depicted Diego de Guavara, a Spanish nobleman, with his hand over his heart. He gazed upon the Woman with the eyes of one who possesses the strength and beauty of soul that exists only in those who have experienced both the “agony and the ecstasy” in this valley of tears. He looked at her in the same way a courageous warrior might gaze upon the woman in his life who knows him intimately, who sees him without his armor – who sees his wounds – the only one with whom he allows himself to be vulnerable. His eyes speak tenderness, sadness, and above all, Love.

But the detail of this diptych that has made the most lasing impact on me was the fact that, unlike most other diptychs where the subjects of the two panels are depicted in separate locations, Sittow constructed these paintings in such a way that it seemed that Diego de Guavara was sitting just down the table from Our Lady – that she was really there, sitting beside him, ready to turn her head at any moment to comfort him with a mother’s heart.

This work reminds me of a deep and eternal truth written into time and creation since its very foundation: that beyond the veil of the physical world exists a spiritual world that is just as real, (perhaps even more real depending on your particular philosophical persuasion!) than the concrete realities we experience with our senses. For Diego de Guavara, Mary really was sitting right beside him, just as much as gravity exists, or the sun still exists when it is hidden by cloud cover on a gloomy day. Though it is perhaps more difficult for us to believe in the midst of our world of mp3’s, Concorde jets, cell phones and iPods, the Blessed Mother was present to de Guavara in his prayer in a very real way, just as she is present to you and I today.