Our own witness

'And what would I look like standing by the well? More like a woman and less like a girl...'
Belle & Sebby, upcoming record


When I discussed going to the Metropolitan Museum in my last posting, I failed to mention my moment with a painting by Antonello da Messina. I was sort of in 'speed round' mode when I jotted those last thoughts, and knew this particular experience required a couple quietly written sentences. When the show was mentioned in particular by a commenter to this blog (a man of the cloth so-to-speak,) I felt I should do it sooner than later.

His painting of The Annunciation (which according to Gospel is the moment where an angel told Mary of her miraculous pregnancy) has most likely become my favorite painting of all time. It replaces the almost inverse Bar at the Folie Berger By Eduard Manet, which according to me is the moment where an inner voice tells a barmaid (in those times frequently also a prostitute) that all that glitters isn't gold, and that she...in her divine nature...is not for sale...like the ale and tangerines.

The greatness of Da Messina's painting is that it is not dependent upon whether or not one connects to, or believes the stories in the New Testament. Where as all the paintings I had ever seen of The Annunciation before featured an actual winged angel visiting, standing beside Mary...Da Messina's gains its power from its lack of 'supernatural spectacle.' It doesn't ask us to believe of grace, anything more than the solemnity it brings to a teenagers face. It is about a human experience, repeated in all our lives, as we alternate between opening and closing the shades to the street lights. You see the conflict, the fear, but ultimately the beauty of Mary's surrender in this painting. The courage and dignity of those who try to make sense of their calling, of their soul's work. You see it in the faces of teenagers when they come upon art or verse or friendship which cuts through the static of sex, drugs, and capitalism. You probably saw it on my face when I first heard Hatful of Hollow, at 17. But you would have seen it gripping the manchild by the shoulders and shaking him when I saw Michelangelo's La Pieta at 28. Pure illumination. The struggle between that which is so young and vulnerable in our beauty, and that permanence which is revealed as the former passes away. Our flesh and our spirit, together for this life. Our burden. Our blessing. The search for the child we become again through inspiration. Even at 28, I relapsed 'like a dog to its vomit' when I returned to New York from Italy. The Flesh and The Static. Oh to have had the silence of the desert, or the sea, or even the room where Mary waited for her song.