By
the summer of 1875, Paris was in an uproar. The art world was under siege by a
rebellious band of young painters who challenged the academicism of Renaissance
art. They splashed the canvas with bright colors and loose brushwork in an
attempt to “paint light” and capture the “little fragments of the mirror of
universal life.”[1] Their
critics howled with outrage, calling these new works “absurdities,” even
crimes, accusing young radicals like Claude Monet of conducting a veritable “war
on beauty.”[2]
The
young Vincent van Gogh was there that riotous summer. As an aspiring artist
himself, one would think that his personal correspondence (he wrote over 800
letters, most to his brother Theo) would be filled with the daily spectacle of
Renoir, Degas and other Impressionists painting passers-by on the street and
the horrified art community writhing with hostility. Yet not a word. Vincent’s
prodigious letter writing mentioned nothing of this cataclysmic clash at the
center of the art world.
Why?
In short, van Gogh had found God.
Captured
by the ascetic spirituality of Thomas à Kempis, van Gogh simply eschewed the
worldly trappings and glittering lights of his day. In a sense, Vincent turned
dramatically inward. He followed the example of Christ as Kempis saw him,
“Withdraw your heart from the love of things visible, and turn yourself to
things invisible.”[3]
On
this solemn Advent day in December, the Church likewise turns inward as we
celebrate the Immaculate Conception. “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a
town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
and the virgin’s name was Mary. “Hail, full of grace!” he said, “the Lord is
with you” (Lk 1:26-28). Though the turbulence of the world swirled around her
and the murderous mania of Herod threatened her very life, nothing could
disrupt the eternal truth. All the grace and righteousness of God was growing
inside her. “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you
shall name him Jesus . . . and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and his kingdom will have no end” (Lk 1:31, 33).
Van
Gogh, though assailed throughout his life by mental illness and social
alienation, kept the Advent hope alive that God was indeed making his presence
known through him. He articulated it this way:
There may
be a great fire in our soul,
yet no one
ever comes to warm himself at it,
and the
passers-by only see a wisp of smoke
coming
through the chimney, and go along their way.
Look here,
now, what must be done?
One must
tend the inner fire, have salt in oneself,
Wait
patiently yet with much impatience
For the
hour when somebody will come
And sit
down near it – maybe to stay?
Let him
who believes in God
Wait for
the hour that will come.
Though
the world clamors with cymbals and gongs, though our eyes may not be honed
enough to see it, God’s kingdom is growing among us. In Christ, God’s grace has
been conceived in us and it is our task, in this blessed Advent season, to
“tend that inner fire”. May we wait patiently, as the Blessed Virgin Mary did,
for that hour to come when that seed of grace will be born in us. And maybe,
just maybe, somebody will come, sit down near the fire of our love, and receive
its warmth and light.
