Worship Resources for February: 4. Beauty

Light

A young woman opens the window and in pours the morning light—fresh, sharp, vital. She gazes at the window. But her hand is firmly placed on the gilt pitcher resting inside the matching basin. She is lost in thought. Something magical is happening with the interaction of light and leaded glass. Or is the woman looking out of the window at a new day breaking into all its assorted activity?

In his Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, Vermeer captures the moment of transfiguration. The woman is translucent! She is preparing to wash with basin and ewer. Washing and cleansing are associated with baptism. The opening of the window to let in the light reminds us of that moment when Jesus was baptised and transfigured and God confirmed his delight in his beloved!

Is this the source of the woman’s serenity? She is reassured that God loves her and sheds the light of his countenance upon her and brings her peace this morning? ‘This is my beloved daughter in whom my heart delights.’ It is a heavenly way to start the day! For here, as Gerard Manley Hopkins says, ‘There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.’ ²

In the painting, the light also illuminates a bigger picture for it literally falls on the map located on the wall behind the young woman. It is a map of the Netherlands, which puts her house and town into its proper context. What we celebrate is the light enveloping the woman and placing a value upon her life. Its coordinates are in the here and now, today and forever.

We may become distracted by the revelation of half a secret—an open box with blue ribbon falling out of it sitting on the table. What does it mean? One thing is sure, it has no significance for the young woman this morning. She has caught a glimpse of something much bigger—a new day, a new world, a new being. She is present to the morning light. Is God calling her to something new? He shares her delight but he does not say!

Truth

Although we only have thirty-six possible paintings by Vermeer, there are another eighteen paintings inside this corpus! It was a common feature in Dutch paintings of the time. In this way, the subject of the painting could be interpreted or informed by the additional artwork.

There were also emblematic books which associated certain virtues and vices with particular objects. This enabled the viewer to look at the painting and decode it like a finitely soluble puzzle. There is evidence to suggest that Vermeer’s paintings ‘were designed to expose the poverty of the method’. ³

A woman standing before a mirror putting on a pearl necklace would have the potential to expose one of the deadly sins—vanity. But not so in Vermeer. Whilst he has taken an image which could be interpreted in this way, he has reinvented it in ‘Woman Putting on Pearls’ to say something different.

‘The woman appears to be not so much admiring her pearls in the mirror as offering them to the light’, writes Snow. ‘It is as if we were present at a sacrament.’ ⁴ What is the sacramental element—neither bread nor water. Isn’t it the light? To what extent is the daylight a sacrament of the uncreated light of God? ⁵

‘Let there be light!’ says God in the first Creation narrative. ‘Let there be…’ What the light illuminates is not simply the pearl necklace and the woman holding them up to the light but the joy of being a woman at this moment in time, beloved by the one who, according to St. John, brought all things into being. ⁶

Grace

It is not we who love her,

But the light, igniting

A white fire of lace at her throat.

Or so we will swear… ⁷

In viewing Girl with a Red Hat, Daniel Lusk has seen what we are seeing too. It is the light which Vermeer paints and the light which interacts with the people in his interiors. It does not cast a moral glance upon life and living but illuminates something beyond the exterior to the interior of our lives.

In his painting, Woman Holding a Balance, there is a pearl necklace sparkling in the shadows. The scales are empty, perfectly balanced. There is nothing being weighed but the light. The woman holds the scale in her right hand and puts her left hand on the table. It looks as if she is doing this to balance herself. She looks intently at the scales, poised as if she was doing a balancing act on a tightrope. She is in perfect equilibrium.

Worry knocks our life out of balance. Jesus counsels against it. He invites us to look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. They have learnt how to hold their lives in balance. We balance the past which has gone and the future which may never be ours. And find the point of equilibrium which enables us to live in the present moment.

As it happens, the woman is standing in front of a painting of the Last Judgement where women and men will be judged by Christ. The woman obscures the image of the Archangel Michael who holds the scales of justice. She is at peace because her life is in balance. She has found some equanimity in the shadow of the Last Judgement. Her serenity couldn’t provide a more comforting contrast to the cacophony going on behind!

She is pregnant. This fullness of life contrasts with the empty crumpled up cloth awaiting its fulfilment. Her head tilts slightly to one side. On her white hat, there is the dark image of a hand, supporting her head. The light is subdued. We see it creeping behind the edge of the curtain and in a sharp reflection in the mirror. What is reflecting this light? There is only one thing in front of the mirror, the woman with the balance.