As I walked into church today I immediately noticed the children's art imitating the "Stations of the Cross". The plastic lamination detracted from the childish intentions but I scanned the entire series. Wait a minute - one of these is not like the others.
Being creative is less about art imitating life and more about mystery and expression. The child's picture was art and at such a young age. All the others could have been coloring book pictures but not "Jesus Meets His Mother". I even stayed after to see if I could get a picture but the lighting was too harsh.
It had swashes of color with some general shapes and a little detail. The only elements that led me to recognize Jesus or his Mother were the eyes. A single one for Jesus and a single one for Mary, excepting that Mary's had a tear. Of all the recent art I've seen this one moved me - would like to see it again and even get that picture.
Art is uniquely human and it means many things to many people. The northern European Renaissance developed highly detailed small symbolic compositions while the south did large scale murals whose detail could only be seen from a distance. The artist knows when its complete by an intuition born from mastering technique. Imitating life is a picture but when lifeless materials are made to contain mystery and hold individual attention - without any supporting dialog - then that's art.
Set my mood - then it happened. The Gospel was very symbolic too (MT 17:1-9) - "tents” - symbolic of the Tabernacle's of the old testament and clothing becoming "white as light". The Essenes Sect focused on writing while the the Pharisees and the Sadducees focused on the law and prophets. All different sources of knowledge that later became highly developed. However, a system of chapters and verses allowing for cross reference was not developed until the early 13th century (Archbishop Langton).
Earlier Jewish systems were less refined and relied heavily on a functional division based on scrolls and verse endings. Initially their was no book or canon and no chapters, however, writing was a highly developed part of the priestly tradition. They were not the only tradition either, included was an oral tradition and a ceremonial tradition.
The symbolic nature of the Jewish culture is apparent but without a method of cataloging there would have been an innate need to cross-reference the law, with the writing, with ceremony, and prophetic teaching. The stories used to perpetuate the culture included liberal references to historic symbols to explain how they changed. The importance was never historical or geospatial but a practical method of continuity so important to tribal survival and cult identity. Its symbols. And how they changed relative to their creators and influencers.
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