Redemption, Cosmos, and Human Seeds
Talking about Sacred Art, analyzing designs, principles, theories… Can we claim that each work created by an artist carries in itself the seeds of the Sacred?
Even if the work is designed on a pagan altar? Formerly, the sacred art was the work of the genius of Christianity; this was during its beginning because all the artists drew their patterns from the “Holy Scriptures”.
I can affirm that the subject chosen by the artist sometimes has nothing to do with the sacred even if the representation is a passion of Christ, a Nativity or a Madonna, but the sacred is in intimate relation with the creative artist, his vision, his feelings, his ideas and his emotions.
The latter must express through the work he produces the poetic, the lyrical, his sensation, his sincere feelings towards God, the infinite Creator.
We can compose a landscape, a group, a whole which by its lights, its content, its material, its colors, reflects the sacred; even in an abstract work, in the way the artist treats the composition, the shapes, the lights, the colors we are able to touch the sacred… Many informal stained glass windows encourage and push us to meditation, to prayer and raise us towards the Supreme Creator and leave us in a state of ecstasy.
The game of the sacred is an act carried out in the soul and the spirit of the painter with love, will and want, and all the capacities which mean that plastically the artist fully dominates the execution of the work that puts in ecstasy the Creator and the one who looks at the work.
I started the canvas with a sketch of its structure: a layout of lines and geometric figures distributed and intelligently studied; the circles dominating and emanating from the center where the Redeemer is crucified. In this Cosmos that we believe to be disorderly, reigns a structure of rigor, order and mastery of the Creator. Everything is in its place; it is an exact science that dominates.
One day, Einstein dropped this sentence: “God does not play dice” in this divine creation. Chance, coincidence, fortune… do not exist, these are words to be consumed in an empty literature, for minds where doubt and randomness dominate…
In the background, a whirling movement, in a secret geometry and a perfect order crossed by a cosmic light. The Redeemer is above this fairy bay, between the waters and the skies. In the background a landscape, hills and cliffs are preparing to receive the human seed. In the foreground, a large crowd like the characters of the writing is integrated in these infinite circles which progress to reach another world, a Paradise. A mobile crowd likes the leaden alphabet at the printing press; we move the letters to achieve another vision, expression. The eye of the spectator circulates harmoniously in this mass of humans.
The Cosmos of the Creator God is sublime, with man created at his image, the Cosmos gains in richness and depth, in beauty, in reason for being; it has a human touch, a soul. These beings are there to glorify their God and to understand thanks to their intelligence the greatness of the Messiah.
Squares, rectangles are not far from the bay under the feet of Christ. This human cloud full of life is there in testimony to the one who said: “I am the Light of the world”. A few Lebanese flags discreetly decorate this scene. The work captures us and lets us meditate and reflect like the music, the sounds, the following precede the antecedent, the unity is continuous, the whole is a hymn to joy, a call from the human to the divine.
The Redeemer is a monumental work, it is not enough for its dimensions, and it crosses space and reaches our hearts.
Joseph Matar
Adaptation by Mayda Samaha