Thursday night, I ventured into the city for my first taste of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Unbeknownst to me, MIA was hosting its "Third Thursday" event--an evening replete with club music and drinks in the lobby of the museum. Initially, I was not secretly annoyed by the cacophony, which was so unusual for that particular milieu. Most art museums boast of silence, and the occasion echoes of guided tours a few galleries down the hall. Not tonight. And later, I was tremendously grateful for this fact.
As I wandered through the various galleries almost to the beat of the music downstairs, I emerged from the European art from the 1800s to the colors of impressionism. I sat down to absorb a particularly large and colorful painting. The lines were imprecise—and for a realist—most of the picture was not true to life. But the reds, blues, yellows, greens were captivating—if only for a moment. And then I heard a voice within me, almost like a death knell, “Not even color satisfies.” At which point, I began to suspect that this artist had attempted to touch the infinite through the vibrancy of color—only to discover that that too did not suffice.
As I rounded the bend, I recognized a familiar painting by Van Gogh, Olive Trees. But my appreciation for the piece mounted as I read the history behind it. In 1889, just a year before he died, Van Gogh checked himself into an asylum. It was during this time that he painted various scenes of olive trees. Less than a year later, he committed suicide. So, basically, Olive Trees was a snapshot of his soul. Those trees were so angular, so scorched by the sun. You could see the motion of heat. And color dominated. And again the words, “Not even color satisfies.” It is not enough. Color is not enough. Nothing is enough. Art is not enough. But I think Van Gogh was hoping that his art would save him. At last, he could no longer handle the silence with which his art answered him.
Maybe to escape from this disconcerting conclusion about Van Gogh’s fate, I sought out a guard to direct me to the medieval art. Entering those galleries, the irony of the evening was heightened even more. I was looking at medieval triptychs and downstairs were avant-gardes and club music. So strange. It really forced a meditation on the sacred and the profane and the emptiness that the world offers. It only offers emptiness.
I recalled how in Austria we had the end of the year dance in an old Carthusian Monastery in the foothills of the Alps. One of the rooms had been converted into an ornate ballroom. I was in the gravel courtyard, with the dark sky, the medieval spire silhouetted against the moon, and that yellow glow coming from the ballroom, where they were blasting the song, “What is love?” At that moment I was seized by the reality of spiritual blindness. Young people were dancing--looking for satisfaction in each other when the simple Host sat alone in a tabernacle. I went to the Adoration instead of the ball.
This evening at the MIA was the same—with the dichotomy but also the close proximity of the sacred and the profane. This painting summed it all up: Christ’s arrest in Gethsemane. The entire explanation for the piece was the Gospel passage typed onto the placard. It repeated Christ’s question to them, “Whom do you seek?” When I read those words amidst the cacophony, I was deeply moved. I made a 360 degree turn around the gallery. “Whom do you seek?” Amidst this art, amidst this noise, amidst a myriad of souls, “Whom do you seek?”
And like Van Gogh, the men in this painting were also looking among the olive trees.
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