Simon P Walker

The following piece was written as an reflection on the series of paintings, Windows to the Soul, which is scrolling to the left of the web site.

 
Introduction

The Series of nine paintings in question, titled Windows to the Soul, was produced between July and September 2000. The artist is an ordained stipendiary minister in the Church of England who had served four years since ordination in a large evangelical church in Oxfordshire. The paintings were the culmination of reflection upon that experience.

The series was exhibited in four venues over the following nine months: In September 2000 at the artist’s own church; later that same month at a private, domestic venue in London; in March 2001, in the chapel of Regents Park College, Oxford; finally in April at St Paul’s Hammersmith. Each of these venues was very different, and the intention of each show was also particular to each place. At Regents Park, a quiet day for the college was held using the art as a focus and context. In St Paul’s, the exhibition provided the setting for the whole of Holy Week, including an evening of meditation, an arts café, a workshop and the Sunday services.

The following essay is a reflection on a series of different relationships: between the artist and the paintings; he accompanying poetic meditations and the paintings; the viewer and the paintings; the viewer and God; finally, the examiner of this paper and the paintings.
 
The Artist and the Images

I have often been asked how long it took to produce these paintings. The questioners are somewhat confused when I answer that they took both five weeks and five years.

The actual physical creation of the images- the making of the canvas stretchers, the application of paint took only five weeks. The production was necessarily intensive, due to time constraints, but it was also a way of absorbing myself in solitude, to express what I was feeling. There was almost no preparatory sketch work done. The images ‘painted themselves’ developing their own life from the kernel of an idea, or mood, or image in my head. At their most basic, they are a form of Expressionism, a term originating from a genre of art produced in the early to mid part of the 20th century. Expressionism, in the work of Gauguin for instance, originally marked a definitive reaction to Impressionist orientation to the exterior world; expressionist artist were concerned with the interior, the ‘Idea’. There were two main schools of German expressionism after this period: die Brucke (Heckel, Kirchner) and the Blue Rider (Kandinski, Marc, Klee). Hermann Barr argued that expressionism was a reaction from the mechanistic, technological world of the early 20th century, a quest for inner spiritual values and meaning. It might be argued that, in this early period, the term was used because the artists were concerned with pure, raw, immediate expression, unmediated by exterior elements or structure. ‘In expressionist painting…’, writes Hal Foster, ‘the material elements tend to be subsumed by what the painting expresses, by its subjective reality.’ Later American Abstract expressionism, associated with painters such as Rothko, Pollock, Still and Newman, took on a strongly ethical intention and a bold aesthetic claim, orientated more self-consciously to their effect on the viewer.

Windows to the Soul, as the title suggests first represents a window into the artist’s world, a way of expressing the interior. The challenge for any expressionist, however, is to move beyond the solipsistic privatization of that inner place to create a visual language which can speak, can be understood. At one level, and perhaps the most primary, expressionist painting is concerned solely with getting the inside out. However, there is a secondary aim; to communicate. Because often, and certainly in my own case, the artist is trying to break out of the prison within, to say things that which he or she has been unable to say in other ways. The goal, for me, was to speak of things that I had been unable to express before, in order to be understood, to be heard and listened to.

In one way, the very act of applying paint, the vigour and energy and movement was expression- a kind of performance, and exercise which left a visible memory or trace on the canvas. It might be argued that, for instance, the mood of Van Gogh was, at times, reflected in his handling of paint, though one must beware of ‘reading-into’ a painting any over-simple explanations. Such physical expression is possible because the boundaries of the canvas provided a stage upon which one’s ‘feelings’ could be performed. For me, there was a cartharsis in the release of feelings and emotions simply in the energy of application.

However, the initial explosion of colour and form must become, I felt along with others, a more condensed and intense expression of that energy and feeling. Thus, the method of painting involved a reinforcing of the emerging theme through overlaying several (up to 6) layers of paint, creating a simple motif or form from the colour relationships. The method allowed the painter to ‘journey’, each layer reflecting both a stage of the feelings at that moment as well as contributing to the image. For instance, one painting was produced either side of a short holiday. On return, I found my development of the painting as a predominantly a tonally dark piece had to be rejected. Over the initial surface, I reworked lighted and brighter tones and forms, which reflected the revised position I felt on my own journey.

This ‘layering’ can be seen as a visual metaphor for the human persona. Psychologically, it is well established that persons ‘present’ themselves in the public arena. Indeed, the term persona means ‘mask’. Jung’s understanding of personality saw the mask as the public side of the ‘self’, and that ‘the world invites the individual to identify with the mask.’ Goffman, explores the way that humans create masks for themselves depending on their context and intended performance. In a sense, the method of my paintings was an attempt to reflect the layers and masks that overlay our inner lives. In one sense, I was more interested in the under-painting than the final visible layers, and in exploring our willingness to be vulnerable and expose this ‘underbelly’.

This concern had originated in the reflection I had done on he nature of personhood in the Godhead. I had become increasingly aware, in particular, of ‘vulnerability’ within the Godhead as a defining character of human personal life. The persons of Father, Son and Spirit express vulnerability in their openness to and self-giving love for one another. Vulnerable relationship is found at the deepest heart of the trinity; the Father is vulnerable to the Son in showing all things he does to him ; the Son is dependent upon the Father not exercising autonomy ; the Spirit defers from himself to bring glory to the son and constantly opens up the relationship of Father and Son to include the ‘other’ . Many theologians have argued that the Imago Dei in man reflects God’s relational nature, thus vulnerability defines human personhood. It also appears to describe God’s mission in Christ, as T.S. Eliot so aptly puts it,
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Henri Nouwen, in particular, has argued from the vulnerable God of the Bible, to the implication of the central character of ministry as vulnerability. Alistair Campbell comments that we ‘heal most effectively when sharing our vulnerability.’ The very exhibition of pieces of work so clearly expressionistic as Windows to the Soul was itself a statement of the artist’s perspective on the centrality of vulnerability in ministry. The series title, clearly suggests an inner –looking. If there was an over-arching desire behind each work, it was that they might create an ‘empathy’ with the viewer, drawing them, through my journey, into their own inner-reflection. It is in this sense, that I insisted to any questioner, that the paintings had in some senses taken many years. The raw material that funded the method and indeed the content was the experience of primarily being a public Christian with a designated role.

I also found myself reflecting through the paintings on the extent to which we can retrieve the things we bury in our ‘inner selves.’ We have come, through the language of Freud and Jung to know of this place as the unconscious. This draws, on the metaphor of a realm ‘underneath’; a hidden self, perhaps a darker self as Jung would suggest. The unconscious, apart from being hidden from public gaze, is also beyond the control of the conscious mind. It does not follow the rules of the rational, nor is it subject to cognitive processes or analysis. It is, apparently a world of eclectic images, memories and reactions to a life passed. Surrealist art claimed to be a post-Freudian depiction of these ‘dream-accessed’ areas. But to what extent can it ever be consciously retrieved? Hal Foster argues that any such claim is suspicious. Foster is surely right in pointing out that it is only by linguistic labels applied to the inner world post hoc that it can ever become conscious and articulated. Hence, unmediated, pure expression is a fallacy; we access this world by the symbols we place upon it. Nevertheless, the notion of symbols that signify an unconscious reality, such as Jung’s shared archetypes, is entirely valid.

James in 1890 made the distinction between the self as subject, 'I', and the self as object of knowledge, 'Me'. The self-concept is, he suggests, a conjunction of both I and Me, who we are and who we perceive ourselves to be. This general distinction, developed further by Cooley in 1902 and Mead 1934 has been accepted as basically valid within psychological thinking. Initially I engaged purely as unreflective subject, expressing pure ‘I’. However, as I began to reflect on the effect and speech of the paintings, I became the self-reflective ‘me.’ I found the process of standing apart to self-reflect initially a disquieting development distracting me from my raw intentions. I was aware that it clouded my access to my own underneath and in doing so was in danger of unhooking the creative process itself. As an act of cognition, it sought to order and make sense of the visual forms that found their origin in something deeper, more mystical , perhaps archetypal, certainly emotional, and I worked hard to restrict the process of analysis beyond the essential.

Several of the paintings, Inside Outside, Treasures in the Darkness and Receiving Love, are explicitly concerned with what is going on underneath in these unconscious arenas. They suggest a reversal of the public face, hinting at a life and power and meaning within and below that belies and sometimes contradicts the apparent. They hint too, at the danger of a dislocation between inner and outer selves and are intended to challenge the kind of professional : private disintegration that characterizes some of what goes for Christian ministry.

The Images and the Meditations

Alongside the images are an accompanying series of meditations. Historically, these were derivative from the images, thoughts which formed later and which did not in anyway, at least initially, form the image itself. They were verbal comments upon the images, intended to sharpen their meaning, their speaking. Yet, at the same time, the choice of poetry was intended to merely allude to, offer direction, rather than define or describe meaning in the image.

Their presence sparked some reaction. On the whole, and to those who would call themselves artistically uninformed, the poems were a help. Most viewers were interested in knowing a meaning, the meaning to the works. For many, the title and the text were only just enough, frustratingly ambiguous and oblique. However, for others, notably a senior cleric and art critic and the more artistically aware in general, the image was text enough. For them, the poems were either unnecessary, or even unhelpful.

This debate, is of course, part of the wider debate about text and meaning in art. What is the value of artistic commentary? Does it add and inform or does it detract and simplify? Mahler is quoted as writing “I drew up the program (for his second symphony) as a crutch for the cripple. It can only give superficial indication….as religious doctrines do it leads directly to a flattening and coarsening….in the long run to distortion.”

 The Bishop of Oxford is inclined to agree. “The effort to spell out the meaning of a work is always difficult and nearly always unsatisfactory.” He also personally encouraged me to remove the titles and poems from the exhibition. Art itself has a texture and a character rich and full which cannot be reduced to mere commentary. Indeed to do so would be to place art in the level of mere illustration- pictorial interest to that which can and has already been said in words. I suspect the difficulty of some of viewers found in the ambiguity may have been due to the evangelical tradition in which they were schooled. In such, doctrine is often favoured over narrative, interpretation over experience, plainness and simple meaning over ambiguity and complexity. There is a need in many to ‘know the answers’ perhaps especially in a ‘how-to’ age of instant solutions. Harries suspects this is a more general feature of the Christian tradition in which the general and abstract has too often been prematurely accepted at the failure ‘to grasp the actual texture of human existence.”

Perhaps the poetic comments reflect my intent to create an empathy, a communication which connected, rather than leaving people in the cold. However, the poems were not intended as ‘the meaning’ to the paintings nor ‘crutches to the crippled’. Rather, they formed an intentional and integral form of speech within a wider language framework. I would argue that it is a false distinction to divide word and image. Both are forms of symbol. As Richard Harries accepts, arts must adhere to certain forms to be known as art. Words are simply certain forms that take their meaning within a specific canon of meaning and tradition.

At one time, finding its roots in the thinking of Aristotle, verbal language ascribed a direct, metaphysical correspondence with the reality denoted. However, since Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, linguistic philosophers have argued rather that words find their meaning within a language game of symbolic associations and partnerships. Verbal language has its own imagery, texture, play and dynamic as much as visual or musical language. Linguistic metaphor, arguably the basic structure of all language, insists on unresolved ambiguity in its very structure- the application of an alien term by transference. The language is always allusive, oblique to a degree with an element of mystery, in a similar way to the ambiguity in visual symbolism. The question of the relationship between verbal and visual language becomes not an issue of one interpreting the other, but of the complementarity and coherence of the two.

I accept that this is a controversial view point. Clement Greenberg’s thesis was that the modernist experiment demanded each artistic discipline needed to justify its uniqueness and validity within its own epistemological terms. For him, then, visual art and verbal poetry are separate art forms which have do not contribute to the meaning or validity of the other. Again, for modernist art critic Clive Bell artistic endeavour is the enterprise concerned with eliciting emotion unique and peculiar to that art form; aesthetic form must generate aesthetic emotion. Presumably, for him, poetic form must generate poetic emotion. Such is patently not true. Poetic image relies upon the visual imagination; without aesthetic emotion, poetry would lose its meaning. Likewise it is nonsensical to suggest that aesthetic meaning is independent of poetic, prosaic, even scientific symbolism. If Foster is right, that all expression is clothed and mediated through consciously applied signs, then influence from all disciplines in the conscious and analytical realm will filter down and offer form to the unconscious. Aesthetic expression, like any other, cannot claim to be pure, generated solely within aesthetic signifiers. It is within the synergy of verbal and visual images that aesthetic form is produced. Arguably, the emergent feature of a ‘postmodern’ epistemology is the breaking down of the boundaries between all the disciplines, a rejection of the notion of the ‘artistically pure’.
 
The point can be strengthened with a closer reflection on the nature of perception per se. All perception is rooted in image and the consequent verbal metaphors which derive from those images. Metaphor opens up the nature of the world in a way that was previously undiscovered; it unfolds the structure of things. If this is the case, it is certainly false to see the metaphorical poems as competing or undermining the texture of the images. For both find their meaning and significance as forms of speech in the hidden archetypal symbols and metaphors with which they form association. It is upon a prior ontological conviction that I wish to maintain the unity of visual and verbal language.

Of course, the semiotics of visual symbols, and art in general, is a vast subject to which I can only make passing reference. It must be noted first that, in any form of speech, there is always a gap between the sign and reality signified- that is the insight of structuralism. The issue is the width of that gap. It has never been the case that visual abstraction sees no relation between sign and reality. The very earliest abstract expressionist work of Kandinski and his ‘colour chords’, attempting to capture the psychological effect of colour and its relationship to music, relied upon a semiotics.

Gombrich argues that Paul Klee’s artistic process, allowing initial abstract cues to be reinforced spontaneously to form images, reflected his view of the mysterious process of the evolution and power of nature itself. Mondrian’s geometries, he suggests, sought to refer to an underlying ontological unity, arguably in a more Platonic tradition. Mark Rothko’s enormous later abstracts seem to refer to the transcendence and negation of the self in the mythical and other. For him colour ‘was never just colour, but a mood in potency, ’ and that mood moved beyond the dark and tragic to the absurd in his monochromatic final pieces. For him, Weiss suggests influenced by the Nietzsche and Satre, reality itself denied a final meaning and art reflected this denial of hope. Without denying the complexity and peculiarity of each artist’s work, one can arguably assert that the semiotics of a variety of Abstract Expressionist artists has been founded upon underlying ontological presuppositions.

The basis for a coherent Christian semiotics must be an ontology established from a biblical vision of the nature of God and his creation. In a biblical understanding, reality is forged in and by the one Logos, the word of God whose rationality patterns all of creation with meaning and sense. Harries argues that it is the logos, closely correlated to the divine wisdom of the Hebrew scripture, which grants all truth coherence for all reality coheres. Wisdom and logos, personified, even hypostasised, in the scriptures, account for the beauty and coherence and order in the universe.

The visual, verbal and indeed, aural symbol take their ability to connect from the texture and form of the world in which we live, reflecting the wisdom and word of God. Each form of speech is concerned with opening up ‘real reality’ as it fully and truly exists; uncovering the truth underneath. However, and as well as this, as Fiddes points out, that truth is a world inhabited by the presence of a personal God, “being itself is already participating in our universe’ (Tillich) . For Tillich, it is the presence of the divine which invests symbols with a power and mystery, the ability to not so much be grasped, but to grasp us- there is an archetypal ontology personal and active which art apprehends and is apprehended by.

 Moreover this present and acting God retains the freedom to act and choose to do new things. If there is an emerging semiotics in Windows to the Soul, it is a referral to a personal God, who beyond, but in relation to, this world, is always doing a new thing. He is involved in our pain in order to redeem and transform. It is, to use the terms of deconstruction and reverse the thesis of Derrida, a discovery of God's presence even in his absence (Treasure in the darkness), a desire for liberation from the caged confines of a hopeless, meaningless world (There is too much pain in the world), a discovery of reality behind the surfaces rather than an endless emptyness (Receiving love). It is also much more, but space forbids me continue…..

The Viewer and the Images
“It is the truth of a landscape that an artist is trying to get at,” claims Harries. Philosophers have mused over the basis upon which art may speak truthfully. For Plato, the artistic representation was simply an imitation of the physical form, which itself imitated secondarily the ideal form. Plotinus was more positive about the power of artistic representation to catch something of the truth of the pure form unmediated by the physical. However, in the Christian tradition, ‘ the heavens are charged with the grandeur of God.’(Hopkins) The apostle Paul affirms the thought of the Greek poet who writes “In Him (God) we live and move and have our being.” The world is regarded not as a passive object to be either represented or understood, but as an active subject to be participated in and with, and in so doing, to discover the presence of the God who creates and sustains all. Such a personal theism insists that true speaking is not be measured by some objective correspondence of form or colour to an impersonal ideal, but rather by its power to enable encounter; encounter between the creature and the creator.

Augustine argued that for art to be appreciated as beautiful but not be led to appreciate the beauty of the one who is beauty, is to be like a bride who is captivated by the beauty of the ring yet who has no desire to look upon her bridegroom. For him, art is a gift from God and it is the giver who is to be received upon the enjoyment of the gift, rather than solely the gift itself. Art enables encounter; or, to use spiritual language, true art enables prayer. It was interesting to reflect upon the effect of the various hangings of Windows to the Soul on its ability to enable prayer.

The exhibition was hung in different settings and different arrangements. In London, hung quite high up on the walls of a large church building, it served as the definition of the worship space, a series of ‘banners’ for corporate attention. In that setting, it lost its power to create intimate communication with individuals. It was noticeable that viewers browsed and drifted, rather than contemplated and gazed. In the more intimate settings of the chapel and home, the size and scale of the works impressed themselves upon the viewer, challenging commitment to view attentively. In such settings, and especially when a deliberate space was created for groups to sit and wait and look and pray, the paintings enabled a deeper , richer kind of encounter.

John Keble spoke of the way that religion, like poetry, is where the “treasure of truth is hidden from the idle and unready, to be seen only when the eye of the mind is pure.” Undoubtedly, only those who gave their time and committed attention, if any, mined the treasures of these paintings. Such an attitude resulted often in a process of self-reflection in the viewer. The image and poems raised questions often relevant to the viewers. For instance, Too much pain confronts the issue of suffering in the world and our own lives offering a problematic resolution in the form of a numb blue denial, a pushing away of the issue. Such a resolution was intended to both connect and challenge. It created numerous conversations and group discussions about the issue. It prompted a poem to be written about the issue. Outside, Inside again asked an explicit question related to identity and role. The group of ordinands at Regents Park discussed at some length the issue of integrity between public and private life in response to this.

It is my conviction that it was the honesty of the images that enabled viewers to be honest in return. For instance, the pastoral problems associated with depression in those who know and seek God were confronted in Treasure in the darkness. The human need to hide and protect oneself, even in the face of tender love- the difficulty of accepting oneself and accepting love from another were addressed in Receiving Love. These issues are highly relevant within society today and in particular the Christian community. Psychologists suggest that the inability to accept oneself, often rooted in low self esteem lies at the root of many other presenting psychological conditions. Rogers has highlighted how a negative evaluation is often a cause of depression among his clients.

Low self-esteem, Rogers suggests, is a product of a discrepancy between what he calls our 'ideal self' and our ‘perceived self’ . Social psychologist Oliver James suggests that in contemporary British society our ideal selves are manipulated by the media images we have of the rich and glamorous, by which standard he maintains, we will always feel a failure. He correlates this with empirical evidence that levels of serotonin in the population at large are lower than any other part of the world, despite an apparently good average quality of life. Serotonin is a key neurotransmitter responsible for our sense of well being; low serotonin results in low mood. James suggests the cause of our low serotonin , and therefore mood, is the widespread discrepancy between our perceived selves and our ideal selves. It was interesting that Treasures in the darkness, Receiving love, Too much pain and hope were the paintings that sold first and also sold the highest number of prints. Perhaps this was due to a wide resonance with a psychological bleakness in these images?

At the same time as the meaning in the paintings challenging the viewer to self-reflection, the viewer would often add meaning to the image. Several of the paintings create symbols that are deliberately ambiguous. The blue square in Too much pain was seen by some as a sticking plaster, others a well, others a television screen. There’s a space at the table was variously interpreted as three pillars, three seated figures, three chair backs and three doorways. As the artist, such interpretations only served to enhance the speech of the paintings; each represented the lenses through which the viewer saw the work.

By using symbols and visual metaphor, I intentionally opened up the images to a range of meanings. There is a vast body of discussion on the hermeneutics of symbol and metaphor and I have space here only for passing reference to that complex discussion. Earlier I have briefly outlined a semiotics of presence and transformation that informed Windows to the Soul. Such an understanding argues for the significance and meaning of the sign to be ever growing as it is read and understood. It itself participates in a subject to subject encounter, within which it comes to mean, uniquely and for that viewer.

At this point I find the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer helpful. Gadamer proposed that historical events and narratives come into meaning over time through the events that they proceed from. He termed this their ‘effective history.’ Thus, any narrative, including any image, is a seminal point of possibility which grows into being and fullness as it comes to engage, change and contribute to the world in which it plays its part.

My reflection on the experience of producing and exhibiting these images fits well Gadamer’s understanding. The images to a great extent forged their own meaning, interpreted in some way by the poems. In each exhibited space, the images affected people uniquely and personally, creating individual response. As varying interpretations were offered, the meaning of the paintings widened and deepened, developed by a viewer-led trajectory. This process began to create a tradition of interpretation for each painting, a history of meaning that in itself continued to evolve. This, in turn, functioned as something of an interpretive rule or canon, shaping, qualifying further engagement. For me, as the artist, the greatest delight and privilege is in having sown a seed over whose growth and flowering I do not have control.

The Viewer and God
In making the suggestion that the paintings attempt to enable encounter between creature and creator, I am accepting some loss of control over the final effect of the painting. If the paintings are a kind of doorway, the door can have no control over who walks through, nor what they will find on the other side. The analogy of a window or doorway brings the images into close orbit with the tradition of icon painting, as Graham Howes comments “The icon is not a picture to be looked at, but a window through which the unseen world looks through on ours.” In so doing, the icon mediates encounter with the transcendent.

Only the triptych , There’s a Space at the Table, explicitly takes its roots from a work within the iconic tradition, that of Andre Rublev’s Old Testament Trinity. In this painting, the three figures are reconfigured as, variously, interpreted, three doorways or pillars or chairs. The poem indicates openness- space to pass through, as well as substance, persons to encounter. The triptych is intended to be hung as a frontal piece in a liturgical context, creating a three sided screen open to the congregation. Its title and form invite participation, something that becomes a physical act if, as in Regents Park, communion is celebrated in front of the tryptych. The doors become welcoming persons, opening up a space and inviting communicants to eat at the divine table. The movement between the persons is reconfigured to create an open circle unlike the Rublev, inThe Examiner and the Images
It remains only to comment that, inevitably and essentially, you the examiner will not only interpret the images, but add your own meaning to them. In essence, the examination of this piece, including the images (albeit in postcard form) offers a further and uniquely peculiar context in which they must function, not merely as objects of interrogation, but mediators of encounter. It insists upon the unusual step that the examiner act both as objective assessor and, at the same time, active participant willing to be caught up in the movements of the soul.

 which the circle is closed. In his piece the eyes of the Father and of the Spirit focus upon the central figure of the Son. In my piece the Father is placed in the centre, and he defers, by way of the broadening halo, to the Son on his left. In turn the Son reaches a golden arm outward to the believer, inviting participation within the diving communion. Theologically the movement is very different.

I was privileged to share the Triptych with a visiting Georgian pastor, whose roots and upbringing where in the Orthodox church. He spoke of the project in his land to encourage contemporary icon painting and expressed appreciation at my Rublev reworking. Iconography itself has a strict tradition of symbolism and school within which Monks must train. Such strict canonical symbolism is obviously broken in such a reworking as mine, but arguably, with the hermeneutical intention of translating the old symbols into meaningful contemporary ones.

Whilst only the Triptych is the explicitly iconic piece, there is clear resemblance in the wider intention and aim of all the paintings to this tradition. Each offers a window through to some deeper reality. I have suggested that this reality is necessarily divine if it is authentically true. However, I would stop short of claiming that the images are ‘windows through which the unseen world looks through onto ours.’

Theologically, to see art as heavenly windows relies upon an access to the heavenlies that I do not feel is legitimate. John of Damascus writes, “I boldly draw an image of the invisible God, as having become visible for our sakes by partaking of flesh and blood. I do not draw an image of the immortal Godhead but I paint the image of God who became visible in the flesh.” For John, the threat of drawing an idolatrous image is assuaged by making a distinction between the incarnate and the eternal natures of God. However, my understanding of the perichoretic nature of the Godhead prevents such a divide, and insists upon the total vulnerability of God in the incarnation. God has made his glory known in the face of Christ and any representation of that face is itself a representation of the essential and eternal nature of God. For me, the symbolic and metaphorical imaging of God through the scriptures enshrines the holiness and otherness of the Godhead. This, I would argue, is compromised by the suggestion that any art or symbol can itself so participate in the divine reality that it itself is worthy of reverence.

The Examiner and the Images
It remains only to comment that, inevitably and essentially, you the examiner will not only interpret the images, but add your own meaning to them. In essence, the examination of this piece, including the images (albeit in postcard form) offers a further and uniquely peculiar context in which they must function, not merely as objects of interrogation, but mediators of encounter. It insists upon the unusual step that the examiner act both as objective assessor and, at the same time, active participant willing to be caught up in the movements of the soul.

 
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