The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio
Emmaus by Alicia Chester
The study by Chester is not intended as a satire of Caravaggio nor a mockery of the scriptural story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Of her own work Chester writes:
I work to create perfect moments composed of ordinary characters in mundane surroundings: carefully choreographed moments as they happen in fiction and imagination, but yet as they never do in the mess of reality. I wish to reveal each figure, whether simply a face or a more complex character, as possessing numerous layers of meaning and interpretation, and to endow each of these revelations with subtlety, vulnerability, quiet suspense, and the idea that below the pristine surface, something is about to rupture.Believers are familiar with layers of meaning and interpretation... revelations with subtlety, vulnerability... and the idea that below the pristine surface, something is about to rupture. In fact, Chester's words here offer an interesting interpretation of sacrament. Her photograph leads me not so much to compare and contrast the figures in one image with the other but rather draws me to wonder if the action and interaction in the second image admit of layered meanings and subtle, vulnerable revelations. Is there depth here or are we mired in the shallows? Below the pristine surface of such a gathering, what, if anything, quietly trembles towards rupture? Or might the rupture be the explosion of an emptiness starved for nourishment, hungry to be fed, aching for someone to break bread?
To offer another contrast, in a different medium, ponder these words by Daniel Berrigan:
When I hear bread breaking, I see something else;
it seems almost as though God never mean us to do anything else.
So beautiful a sound, the crust breaks up like manna
and falls all over everything, and then we eat;
bread gets inside humans.
It turns into what the experts call "formal glory of God."
But don't let that worry you.
Sometime in your life, hope you might see one starved man,
the look on his face when the bread finally arrives.
Hope you might have baked it or bought it -
or even needed it yourself.
For that look on his face,
for your hands meeting across a piece of bread,
you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot -
or die a little, even.
-Daniel Berrigan in Love, Love at the End (1968)
-ConcordPastor
I love that Berrigan quote. It felt familiar, although I'm not conscious of having read it before.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of how I'm trying to change how I respond to guys outside the T station asking for spare change. For the past year or two I've been trying to stop and ask if they'd like a cup of coffee or soup or a muffin. I take their order, go back inside to fill it, and come back to serve them, then take off my glove so skin can meet skin, shake hands with them, give them my name and receive theirs. I make sure I'm always conscious of looking into their eyes. At least half the time they bless me in response. The rest of the time they thank me. We always smile at each other. It's a wonderful way to start my workday.
Piskie: I don't know how well archived are the files in your mind but that Berrigan piece is one I've used in homilies over the years and you may have heard once (or twice!) before in the Back Bay. (In fact, the quote was in the program booklet for the celebration of my first Mass.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience with those on the street... a blessing just to read it!