art history

...everything is already present, though hidden.
–Hildegard of Bingen

We’re drawn to the grandeur of Gothic cathedrals—height, history, stained glass, light. So old! So holy! So overwhelming!

I’ve made my way to Chartres Cathedral several times in the last twenty years, and each visit allows me to know the space more intimately. With each day spent wandering the Cathedral, its light, colors, and shapes become more deeply rooted in my internal landscape. Likewise, I think that through my thought and presence, I become part of the very long history of Notre-Dame de Chartres. I believe that different versions of myself linger in the transepts, the ambulatories, and on the 13^th century labyrinth.

During my last visit to Chartres, the Cathedral was cold and hushed. More than usual, I absorbed detail. A small, dried bouquet tacked to a column, a group of women praying the rosary at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary, a tunic-shaped keyhole on the North Porch of the church. The decoration had been already present, though hidden to me, lost among the statues of Old Testament figures. The minute detail announces that Notre-Dame de Chartres houses the Sancta Camisia, a veil that is believed to have been worn by the Virgin Mary. A sacred relic, the garment was given to Chartres in 876 by Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald. The Sancta Camisia has been credited with protecting the Cathedral over the centuries, and it is still an object of devotion for pilgrims.

Each of my occasional Chartres pilgrimages helps me to unlock present-hidden parts of myself. The knowledge doesn’t reside in the Cathedral like I once thought. Rather, I believe that sacred places emanate a peaceful beauty that enables us to access the wisdom we already possess.

The painting unfolded before me and in me.

I’d spent years looking at art, then promptly filing away the images. Wandering through museums, I encountered works by Rothko, Brancusi, and Degas. Often, they moved me. Yet I never lingered. There was so much art to take in, so I “stacked” the images in my mind, sometimes retrieving them in conversation, in my studies, or in subsequent museum visits. Mary Cassatt’s portraits of children sprung up in tender moments; Malevich’s White on White stumped my students; I sought and found Camille Claudel’s love story in her sculptures at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Yet somehow, I never allowed myself to sit with these works. After so much study and so many museum visits, I found myself in the National Galleries of Scotland in front of Van Gogh’s The Plains near Auvers. For once, I wasn’t prone to move efficiently through a museum. Rather, that dreary afternoon I planted myself in front of the piece that beckoned. Van Gogh’s green and gold fields seemed to move on the canvas. The grasses in the foreground swayed from side to side, and successive fields opened back toward the horizon, one after the other. I sensed that I was in the painting and that the painting was in me. My altered perception of space left me feeling a bit wobbly, but I remained “inside” the image, allowing my mind to move farther into the fields. By engaging in “slow looking”, I connected to an artist and his chosen landscape in a startling, deep way.

The Plains near Auvers still moves about in me. Sometimes, in a quiet moment, I inhale and summon the haphazard rectangles, the swirly sky, and the dabbed red flowers. Other times, the painting wells up, catching me off guard. I am glad to have my tall, orderly stores of images, gathered over years of museum time. They are my foundation and springboard. Now I know to be still with them, attuning myself to their quiet language of color, line, and shape.

Inspirations

Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh, National Galleries of Scotland

The Art of Slowing Down in a Museum, New York Times

Slow Art Day

Keyhole

Slow Looking