I John 1.1 - 2.2: God is Light

This is the message that we have heard...and proclaim to you: God is light. (I John 1:5) God is light. It's a metaphor used throughout scripture. Probably the most common application of the metaphor is in comparison to no-light or darkness. But it's important to remember what light is. 

Light is a spectrum. White light isn't white. It's the presence of the entire spectrum -- all colors of light. Darkness is the absence of all colors of light. [Paint and pigments are directly the opposite: white is the absence of all pigment; dark/black is the presence of all colored pigments.]

Peter Erskine uses sunlight as his artistic medium, asserting that all of life is solar-powered. Erskine uses this element in quite high tech ways. He uses laser-cut prisms and mirrors, connecting them to solar-tracking technologies and photo voltaic cells. The sun is the subject matter, the medium, and the power source of Erskine's art. 

Peter Erskine. Sun Painting. 2009. Lafayette Library, Lafayette, California.

Erskine's installation in the Lafayette County Library is a plexiglas skylight/shaft that is five feet square and ten feet high. Lined with laser-cut prisms and mirrors, the shaft creates an everchanging display of rainbow fragments. In just minutes, the turning of the earth and the changing clouds create completely new arrangements of colors. 

The sun. A constant presence that nevertheless presents ever-changing views. The source of light on earth. All the colors of the spectrum. God is light. 

For more images from the Lafayette Library's Sun Painting installation, click here. 

Genesis 1.1-5: Chiaroscuro

God spoke: "Light!" And light appeared. (Genesis 1:3a, The Message). Light. And dark. Each needs the other in order to be defined, particularly in art. If a painting is all light, with no contrasting dark, it feels too simple, too surface. Dark alone is the same way. It is the pairing of the two - light and dark - in various ways that brings variety, and harmony to any work of art. Throughout the history of art, light and dark have been explored and exploited in various ways. 

A strong contrast of light and dark in the visual art is called chiarascuro (/kyärəˈsk(y)o͝orō/), which literally means light-dark (chiaro meaning “clear” or “bright" and oscuro meaning “obscure”' or “dark”). Seventeenth-century Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (usually just referred to as "Caravaggio"), was the painter who first made this strong contrast of light and dark into a trademark of his style. Artists who came immediately after him and followed his style were referred to as Caravaggists. 

Though created centuries after Caravaggio's work, the photograph of a cabbage leaf (below), embodies the ideas of chiaroscuro. The photo's background is a velvety rich darkness, and the topmost parts of the cabbage leaf are the lightest points. Between the background and the highlights is a full range of values. The gradation of light to dark is what creates a sense of three-dimensional form in the folds of the leaf. The sharp meeting of light and dark creates a hard edge that separates the dark background from the lighter leaf. It is the contrast that shows the form.

Edward Weston. Cabbage Leaf. 1931. NY: Museum of Modern Art. 

God spoke: "Light!" And there was light. By that light God saw the individual shapes and forms of what was being created. By that light we all see. God spoke, and there was light, where there only had been darkness. Jesus, the light of the world.

The word photography literally means "writing with light." In this season of Epiphany, why not try writing with light as a photographic exercise. See Art&Faith Matters on Facebook for tips.
 

Psalm 119.105-112: Lamp and Light

God's word is both lamp and light according to the Psalmist (Psalm 119.105). Lamp and light. One the thing, the other the conveyance of the thing. In scriptural times, a lamp enabled someone to carry fire with them. The lamp could be fed by fuels like olive oil or animal fats. The flame was kept by wicks made of fibers or moss soaked in the fuel. A lamp enables humans to be guided as they move into the unknown. Just like the word of God.

As technology developed, lamps developed in design and materials. The Italian Futurists were interested in progress, in advances, in leaving behind the past. Giacomo Balla's painting "Street Light" is a statement about progress...and the past.

Giacomo Balla. Street Light. 1909. Oil on canvas. NY: Museum of Modern Art.

Balla and the Futurists were interested in making art that reflected the future. In the Futurist Manifesto of 1909, the artists proclaimed that past artistic traditions should be abandoned and the reverence with which Italians viewed the past was misplaced. Modernity was the only thing to be embraced, even if that meant violent revolution. "Set fire to the library shelves! Turn aside the canals to flood the museums!" wrote poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

In this painting, the street light is a symbol of the industrialization and technological progress in early 20th-century Italy. Rome had just installed these new electric lights, artificially lighting the Eternal City. The crescent moon in the painting symbolizes the past. Humans used to need the moon in order to see at night, but no more. Marinetti even advocated, "Let's kill the moonlight!" because of the moon's association with romance and sentimentality. The street light clearly shines brighter than the moon. 

Balla's painting has both lamp and light, both creation and technology. While for Balla it is either street light OR moon, the language of scripture is lamp AND light. The word of God is both the thing and the way we convey the thing. It is both tradition and modern. It is, as the writer of Hebrews said, "living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword." (Hebrews 4:12)

A Great Light

It's the line that echoes from the Isaiah passage (9:1-4) to the gospel reading (Matthew 4:12-23) on the second Sunday after Epiphany(A): The people who walked in [sat in] darkness have seen a great light.

I was all ready to bedazzle this blog post with some of the amazing light installations that contemporary artists are creating. Millions of lights created through actual lights and reflections in mirrored rooms. Images the size of a cathedral wall projected onto...a cathedral wall. Lights that change according to programmed pattern or random change. Clear lights. Colored lights.

And then I wondered if "great light" might mean something else entirely.

Perhaps the light wasn't great because it was a spectacular display of cosmic fireworks. Perhaps the light was great because of what happened by it.

After all, the pyramids of Giza, Gothic cathedrals, the rock churches of Lalibela - all of these were made at a time when the world was (to quote a book title) lit only by fire. Abraham Lincoln didn't learn to read by flipping on a light switch when he got back to the family cabin after working all day. Astronomers around the globe created maps of the heavens. They found those stars with a candle or lantern sitting on the work table next to their telescopes. Any nighttime construction at Stonehenge was done by torchlight. Even for Jesus, who might have been welcomed to earth with a cosmic light show, it wasn't a daily occurrence. And despite what artists might have you believe, there probably wasn't a disk of unnatural light around his head. Someone would have mentioned that. Jesus' life was lit by oil-fueled lanterns and fires.

What might happen, then, when we think about the "great light" that we have seen? Not the star that led magi, but Jesus. How might that great light move us, lead us, call us?

But I can't help myself, so check out the Art&Faith Matters Facebook page for just one of those light installations.

For other thoughts on Isaiah and Matthew, click here.