The Sacred Pedagogy of Art
Part 1 of 2
By Brother Theophan
"I am
seventy years of age, and the whole study of my life has been to find out what
it is that is in myself; what is this thing we call life, and how does it
operate?" - George Inness, 1894
Living around the Hudson has stimulated me to return
to the Hudson River School of painting and enter more deeply into this 19th-century
American art movement. Exploring local art museums such as the Clark and the
Albany Institute of History and Art, which houses a large collection of Hudson
River paintings, along with a recent trip to Olana, has deepened this involvement.
Several artists from this school have
moved me, but George Inness, in particular, has had the greatest impact on me
lately. The Clark Art Institute houses a large collection of his works,
available for viewing. Many of the themes that have deeply resonated with
me—such as the continuity between waking and dreaming consciousness, the
visible and invisible, nature and spirit, human and divine—were also lifelong
driving forces for Inness. Perhaps this is why his work touches me so deeply.
In paintings like The Sunrise, Pool in the Woods, and Sunset Glow, spectral figures, often
little more substantial than globules of color, appear against rustic
backdrops, perfectly capturing the sense of that mysterious inner terrain where
imagination, thought, feeling, and perception weave together in a tantalizing
fugue. When I immerse myself in this art, it sends shivers up my spine. A collection like this could provide an
introduction to the sheer variety and magical power of his works.
If you pause to engage with his art
slowly, it opens a portal into an otherworldly dimension that simultaneously
reveals the magic of the ordinary world around us. The colors, textures, and
brushstrokes vividly evoke this "liminal" space—the invisible depth
of our lives as incarnated beings. I believe that engaging with art offers more
than fleeting aesthetic pleasure; it provides a path toward sanctifying
ordinary life.
To that end, I’ve considered at least
four different ways engagement with art can play a vital role in "sacred
pedagogy." I’ve briefly summarized the first two below, and will provide
another installment in next month’s newsletter.
Clearing the Imagination and the Awakening of Heart Perception
In Orthodox spirituality, the Heart represents the
epicenter of a person’s essence. The Heart encompasses somatic, psychological,
and spiritual realities. Psychologically, it reaches beyond the psychoanalytic
concept of the unconscious, including a transcendent dimension that opens one
to the flow of divine energies. It reaches far deeper than the popular understanding
of the heart, which often equates it with sentimentality or fleeting emotions.
The waters that nourish the Heart flow far beneath this surface.
As
a receptive organ attuned to a broad spectrum of energetic influences, the
Heart responds to nearly everything our senses encounter, along with the flow
of thoughts and fantasies generated by the mind. A fitting metaphor is the
weather-vane, constantly shifting with the winds. The Heart absorbs these
influences, often outside our conscious awareness, though we can certainly
recognize their outcomes. The images imprinted on the mind throughout the day
serve as nourishment for the Heart. This suggests that imagination can act as a
bridge to access the Heart and clear away some of its obstructions. Certain images
possess a “clarifying” power by engaging the deep, intuitive mind.
I
suspect that part of the harm from excessive digital media consumption—such as
phone scrolling, watching online videos, or consuming too much news—comes from
how these activities agitate, dull, and coarsen the Heart’s sensitivities. This
creates a kind of filmy residue on the Heart’s surface, hindering our ability
to enter states of inner quiet, stillness, and contemplation. When imagination
is saturated with "heavy" images that trigger reactive emotions, it
contributes to a coarsening effect, numbing the more subtle faculties of
attentive reception.
The
bio-informational theory of imagery shows that guided imagery scripts activate
the same brain networks and trigger the same physiological changes throughout
the body as those affected by actually being in the depicted situations. Media
depicting violence or other reactive emotions leave imprints that reverberate
long after the initial exposure. In contrast, the healing power of art plants
wholesome “seeds” that gradually purify the imagination of this mental residue.
Together, these effects help clear the sediments that settle in the
unconscious, restoring the Heart’s receptivity and shielding it from harsh
content. Just as time in nature can soften layers of coarseness, consistent
immersion in the soothing pastoral landscapes of these artists relaxes taut
nerves and promotes entry into contemplative states that further open and
"massage" the Heart center.
Sacred Seeing
Immersion in art can do more than calm our frayed
nerves and cultivate inner quiet; it can retrain us to see the world with fresh
clarity and transparency. Inness shared this belief. For him, the purpose of
art was to evoke a deep, singular emotion (what I would call a "sacred
feeling") in the sensitive, attuned viewer. This process resembled a
spiritual awakening, one that could be reached by engaging with the artwork
fully—not just seeing it, but experiencing it with the entire body, connecting
the eyes to the Heart and sensory awareness.
The landscapes in his paintings are
always alive with motion, inspired by a divine breath. He focused on capturing
the "subjective mystery of nature," the "vital force" so
evident in the forests, mountains, and rustic areas around the Hudson region.
His painting style masterfully conveys a rich range of subtle moods, states,
and impressions, particularly those tied to weather phenomena—like the shivery,
electric tension the nervous system feels just before and during a summer
thunderstorm.
Inness
drew inspiration from Emmanuel Swedenborg’s theory of correspondences, which
suggests that all visible objects carry an interior resonance, hinting at an
unseen spiritual dimension. A tree, for instance, is not merely a tree; through
its pulsating, intricate vasculature and root networks, it points to a deeper
network of spiritual meanings. This theory, however, need not remain esoteric.
It finds rich expression in the Orthodox Christian worldview. In The Universe as Symbols & Signs: An
Essay on Mysticism in the Eastern Church, St. Nikolai Velimirovich explores
the possibility of achieving a sacred vision of the cosmos, one that sees
"realities beyond and through transparent symbols and signs of the
material universe." Earth, sun, stars, minerals, plants, animals, dreams,
thoughts, feelings, and even meteorological events are viewed with a depth that
reveals their spiritual overtones, far beyond surface appearances. This points
to the concept of theoria physike—an
advanced state of contemplation in the Christian tradition that allows one to
experience created nature as sacramental. Central to this process is gradually
deautomatizing or defamiliarizing the functions of perceiving, feeling, and
thinking. It’s not necessarily the outside world that needs to be
"re-enchanted," but our inner world. We must learn to transcend and
release the rigid, over-conceptualized ways we engage with reality. I’d love to
explain how these insights align with and situate theoria physike within modern neuroscience, but that will have to
wait for another time.
In
the meantime, I argue that engaging seriously with art can serve as “training
wheels” for embarking on the path to theoria
physike. After spending a few hours in a gallery, immersing yourself in the
paintings of various Hudson River landscape artists, your perception of the
surrounding landscapes shifts noticeably. As you drive home from the gallery,
you might find that, at certain turns and glimpses of undulating green hills,
you begin to experience real life as a work of art—one of deep beauty, mystery,
and sacramentality. A visit to Olana, the former home of Frederic Edwin Church,
a mere 1.5 hours south of the monastery, allowed me to experience this in an
especially vivid way. Walking through Church’s meticulously designed home and
grounds, I felt a tangible connection to his creative process. The views from
his studio and the carefully curated gardens seemed to blur the line between
the artist’s world and the natural world he depicted. This personal touch
transformed my perception, making the landscapes I encounter daily feel like
living artworks. The power of such art awakens our dormant ability to sense and
feel the “inner flame” of the world around us.
[Part 2 in the next newsletter installment]
