‘I See A Darkness’

I recently took my wife to Paris. One of the tourist spots I was most looking forward to was the museum of modern art at the Pompidou Centre. Arguably one of the most easily recognised hi-tech modern buildings in the world due to the inside out nature of it's appearance. The exoskeletal structure of this steel and glass behemoth is criss-crossed by service ducts and tubular enclosed escalators all colour coded for clarity and legibility of design: yellow for electrics, blue for air conditioning, green for water, red for circulation, white for structure. To my architect sensibilities it didn't dissappoint - for my wife, well , maybe the jury is still out on that one (and who could blame her, being dragged round an art gallery when all you want to be is in your pit at 10 weeks pregnant!)

We hitched the ride up the outside of the building on the tubular escalators, enjoyed the fantastic view over Paris and made our way to the first of the exhibitions, which took over the majority of the top floor of this huge building.

We were met with the work of Soulages. This guy has made a career out of painting black canvas’s. I’m talking 60 years of black. Black black black black black…. Just black. ALL black. Quite a contrast to the lively architecture of the box housing his works. There was a quote by the artist that gripped me in the midst of my perplexity at viewing one differently textured and nuanced canvas of black oil paint after another.

“It happened in 1979, I was working on a painting and floundering around in a morass of paint, unable to understand what I was doing, but with something deep inside me compelling me to continue.”

Finally Soulages went to bed. When he woke up, what he saw “was not just a black painting any more but a painting where reflected light had been transformed and transmuted by the black surface. When I realised that light can emanate from the colour which has the biggest absence of light, I was both perturbed and profoundly moved. From that moment my eye changed and I’ve worked in this way ever since.”

That changed my whole perception of what the guy was trying to do as a bunch of well known scripture surfaced in my thoughts.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:5

His first words were ‘let there be light’.
He said of himself ‘I am the light of the world’.
It was said of him that he ‘is light and in him is no darkness at all’.
He said of his followers, ‘You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden’.

Our God incarnated into a world that ultimately nailed him to a tree to die. Darkness fell as the light of the world was extinguished…. but, like those trick birthday candles you saw as as a kid that wouldn’t blow out, death could not hold the power of an indestructible life, and he drop kicked the stone from the mouth the tomb that held him announcing his victory over all forms of darkness.

Soulages most probably isn’t a follower of Jesus, and to that end I doubt he did it intentionally, but his lifes work carries a powerful reminder of his maker in every canvas. ‘Light can emanate from the the colour which has the biggest absence of light’. Just as darkness could not overcome the light of the world when he was born in the frailty of a human body, so we as His Body and the light of the world today are to be the light that gives hope, meaning, form, life and beauty to the darkness. We do this by living out of and declaring the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ in this great city. There is no other way. I see a darkness…. but the light is so much brighter for it.

(Title taken from a track by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - I See a Darkness, the most mournful tune I know, but highly recommended listening!)

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