The life-giving vision of Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence, Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis, No. 7: “And God Created Man and Woman,” 1989-90. Source: Landau Traveling Exhibitions
Discussions about science and religion can get awfully tedious. This is not a reflection on my respected interlocutors on these and other pages, but on the state of my own poor mind. It’s so easy to become lost in abstractions, to mistake one’s ideas for what’s really real. As Goethe once wrote, “Dear friend, all theory is gray, but green is the golden tree of life.” He was right, and it’s not good to spend all of one’s time lost in the grayness. Sometimes it’s mighty refreshing to stand back and see how others, from contexts far removed from one’s own, view the topic.
This weekend my daughter Julia worked on a project for Black History Month. Her subject was Jacob Lawrence, a 20th-century artist whose work was largely focused on freedom and justice in America and addressed such issues as slavery, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement. But he occasionally painted about religious topics, and nowhere more clearly than in his 1989-90 series, Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis.
It is a beautiful and evocative collection, to be sure. Each scene is of the inside of a church, where the preacher can be found delivering himself of an impassioned sermon on the creation story of Genesis 1-2.3. The overflowing energy of the preacher mirrors the vitality of creation itself. And the church’s windows open on scenes of the ongoing narrative; for example, the first of the series, “In the Beginning All was Void,” features windows that open to utter darkness. But as the story progresses, light appears, then the earth, creatures of the sea and sky, etc. In each scene a toolbox lies hidden among the pews, suggesting the building of the cosmos.
Lawrence had this to say about the series:
I was baptized in the Abyssinian Baptist Church [in Harlem] in about 1932. There I attended church, I attended Sunday school, and I remember the ministers giving very passionate sermons pertaining to the Creation. This was over fifty years ago, and you know, these things stay with you even though you don’t realize what an impact these experiences are making on you at the time. As I was doing the series I think that this was in the back of my mind, hearing this minister talk about these things.
What strikes me about this series of paintings is its devotion to the beauty of not only the biblical text but of its public interpretation. A great sermon is a powerful thing, and the relation of such to creation — not only the creation, but Lawrence’s — is surprising and strangely liberating. It takes me outside of myself and helps me to remember how little I can know by myself, and how little I can see by myself.
We can know (yes, know) in ways that are not strictly rational or scientific. There is so much goodness out there, so much to see, and so many ways to see it. And I for one am grateful to Lawrence for reminding me of that.
There are 2 Comments to "The life-giving vision of Jacob Lawrence"
Nice thoughts, Paul! Thanks for a lively and beautiful post. Lawrence’s evocative story-image, as well as creative craftsmanship itself, remind me of the biblical image of the Word stirring across the water, God as Word, thinking and mulling and knowing. Lawrence SO captures for me the halting awe of the creating Word bursting forth with animation. Thanks for pointing out the toolbox! I dig that little detail.
Hi E. Yes, without the toolbox it would lose something really critical for me. Maybe it would lose its commentary on science and the way in which we can comprehend the inner workings of creation. The cosmos is constructed of parts, somehow, and the toolbox in the church is a sign for me that those parts — the details of nature — are of interest not only to us but to God in some strange way.
P.