My wife, daughter, and I were nearing the end of our day at the National Gallery of Art; just heading down a set of stairs to make a whirlwind trip through the Modern Art Annex - when it assailed me! From a mundane spot on a brick wall in a stairwell I spotted the work of art and it got me in it’s grip! The image was seared on my mind and it seemed to reach out and take hold of my heart; and for the first time a piece of art really “spoke to me.” I had meandered through Picasso’s; Rembrandt’s; Renoir’s; and Monet’s (and Manet’s) and while I saw the beauty nothing had struck me like this art piece. I was just traveling through the gallery until I saw this and then everything changed.

The gallery became a cathedral and I was stopped in my tracks as God’s grace and truth mingled in me as I was awestruck before it’s beauty and it’s reality. Nothing like this had ever transpired in my experience (well one other time years before) but, then again for 10 years or more art had become utilitarian in my life. Functional. Purposeful. “Art” had amounted to graphic ‘clip art’, logo’s, $50.00 prints that were the right color scheme, pop-art, marketing, and power-points for someone’s or my agenda. Art was not primary. Art had not had a place in my life to merely be art… until this moment. The artist, now dead (and rather controversial) was able to touch my heart as I was caught unaware by the sheer beauty, magnitude and message of this painting. It was a breakthrough moment. Maybe it was brought on by the afore-admitted sheer deprivation from great art in my life. Maybe it was the fact that I was NOT expecting it and it snuck up on me at that moment. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

I had an epiphany at the National Gallery of Art.

Great art that reflects the Creator and His creation is needed in our lives. It has a way of speaking to us in such a holistic way. In one moment I was in a stairwell making my way down a set of stairs and when my eyes met this work of art… I was in communion with God, awestruck, fearful, full of grace, moved to tears, frozen in time.

Powerful stuff.

May we have eyes to see the beauty of God reflected in our everyday and/or through the lens, paintbrush, charcoal or hands of a gifted (or not-so gifted) artist. May God raise up a church that will again fund the arts and be a place that promotes artists.

The piece of art that “mugged me in the stairwell” is from what I can tell still a part of the collection at the National Gallery of Art, although my last trip there I searched in vain to see it. (Although I did purchase a print to have in my office - when I get an office?!).