The Art of Beholding: Learning to See Anew
After living away from home for the first three months of my freshman year of college, I apprehensively returned for a visit to the city and home I had grown up in.
Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect. Would everything look the same as when I left? Or would things look better now, somehow improved by my absence?
As I drove closer to my house, it appeared as though many of the neighboring house colors and lawn decorations had been drastically altered. I also observed numerous “new old” buildings that although seemed to be weathered and run-down, I had certainly never seen before.
Upon entering my bedroom, I was shocked to see that my bed had been lowered closer to the ground. I candidly asked my mom why she had chosen to make this unnecessary change — a question that provoked roaring laughter from my whole family.
In many ways, it felt as if I was seeing my hometown, neighborhood, and childhood home for the very first time that day. Almost everything appeared different now — but not in the way I expected. In reality, few of the house colors, lawn decorations, or buildings had changed (and of course, my mom had not lowered my bed frame as I was so quick to assume). I realized that day that the subtlety of many details, colors, and shapes had been completely lost on me after seeing the same images so frequently over the course of my life. I had forgotten to even look at them anymore.
A similar phenomenon can occur even with beautiful, sacred art if we don’t approach it with a posture of openness and receptivity. The art of beholding requires a formation of the spiritual senses, not only the eyes. In order to behold a sacred image and not merely look at it, the image must be given and received entirely as a gift.
In his book, The Crossing of the Visible, theologian Jean-Luc Marion discusses the rampant idolization of images in modern times and proposes that the image itself must be freed from our idolatrous gaze so that it can give itself to us entirely as a gift. Marion first explores the devastating effects of the great divorce of many modern images, including commercial advertisements, fanatical films, and editorialized social media posts, from their originals. He suggests that “the liberation of the image consists precisely in its being liberated from every original; the image is valued in itself and for itself, because it is valued by itself” (47). This “liberation” of the image, however, doesn’t bring about meaningful freedom but instead, disposes the image to idolization by the pornographic gaze of the viewer. Without the original, the image is “governed by the one who sees it” (50). Marion suggests that because of the image’s separation from the original and thus from any invisible or visible reality, the viewer can gaze at the image “… for the sole pleasure of seeing: thanks to technology, he is finally able to succumb without limit or restriction to the fascination of the libido vivendi…” (50).
In our fallen state, our libido vivendi finds pleasure in “seeing all, especially what [we] do not have the right or strength to see; the pleasure also of seeing without being seen — that is, of mastering by the view what does not return to me the gaze of another” (50). Consequently, every image “in order to be seen by its viewer, must precisely satisfy his desire to see, its limits and its demands thus every image must reproduce in itself the measure of his desire; this is to say that every image must make itself the idol of the viewer” (51). Marion explains that this objectifying way of seeing establishes a perverse relationship with the world in which the viewer “flees and possesses at one and the same time in the image” (50). Furthermore, he warns that “The libido vivendi, which satisfies itself with the solitary pleasure of the screen, does away with love by forbidding sight of the other face — invisible and real” (54). For example, the unformed viewer may recognize the angel Gabriel and Mary in Fra Angelico’s fresco of the Annunciation with St Peter Martyr and immediately dismiss the image, clinging only to a theological concept which has previously been mastered rather than embracing the invisible reality and deeper contemplation that the particular image invites. Instead of spending time considering the peculiar location of this depiction of the Annunciation, the unusual presence of St Peter Martyr in the scene, or the implications for the viewer’s own involvement in this glorious moment, the image may be consumed and discarded by the gluttonous viewer in a matter of seconds. Ultimately, without the image’s freedom from the default pornographic gaze of the viewer, the image cannot give itself to the viewer in its entirety.
One artistic technique that painter Fra Angelico uses to form the viewer to behold and properly receive his images as a gift is known as “dissemblance” (Transformations in Persons and Paint: Visual Theology, Historical Images, and the Modern Viewer, Reddaway 119). By intentionally depicting details in unexpected or unconventional ways, Fra Angelico’s technique of dissemblance forces the viewer to surrender one’s preconceived understandings and connotations, thus creating a space for deeper contemplation and sincere love. Scholar Chloe Reddaway asserts that in sacred art, “Every symbol is dissemblant since it belongs to ‘an order of reality inferior to what it signifies’, allowing the user to confess both the transcendence of the mystery and the immanence of the figures which points towards it” (119). She also explains the way Fra Angelico masterfully uses dissemblance to “open up the image to contemplation and exegesis by disturbing the viewer” (120). The dissemblant figures in Fra Angelico’s frescoes provide a means by which the viewer can approach the mysteries they convey, transitioning us from “‘the visible to something beyond even the intelligible’” (119).
Fra Angelico’s Noli Me Tangere is a prime example of the value of dissemblance for proper contemplation and reception of the image. Upon detailed examination, the viewer will likely observe the simple “red blotches” that Fra Angelico uses to depict the flowers by Christ’s feet (124). These “red blotches” appear identical in size, shape, and color to the wounds which decorate the hands and feet of Christ (124). Certainly, Fra Angelico had the artistic talent to paint much more intricate, elaborate flowers. Yet instead he deliberately paints some of the flowers in this garden to resemble the wounds of the Resurrected Christ. The color red also notably appears on Mary Magdalene’s robes and on three little red crosses positioned in the grass between Mary and Christ(125). From these connections, numerous questions arise: what is the connection between blossoming flowers and the wounds of Christ? How is it that these wounds which brought about the agonizing death of Christ are related to the theme of new life that is conveyed through the blossoming of creation? And finally, what do the Passion and Resurrection have to do with Mary Magdalene’s sinful past? These questions alone could leave the viewer with enough material to contemplate and pray for hours, but these small details only scratch the surface of Fra Angelico’s use of dissemblance. Another particularly intriguing use of dissemblance can be observed in Fra Angelico’s depiction of the tomb as a rectangular door frame that remains open. There is no stone door depicted beside it, implying that the door of the tomb will remain permanently open. From this figure, more questions arise. What is the door that Christ opened for us through His Resurrection? And what does this particular depiction of the tomb reveal about the way Christ Redeems creation?
Our loving Savior, Jesus Christ, is the example par excellence of the posture that we must take up in order to properly behold an image and not merely look at it. Christ, the Word made flesh, “does not offer only himself to my gaze to see and be seen; if he requires of me a love, it is not a love for him but for his Father; if he demands that I lift my eyes to him, this not at all so that I see him, him only, but so that I might see also and especially the Father…” (Marion 57). In essence, Jesus models perfectly the complete gift of self and reception of the other that genuine love necessitates. To practice the art of beholding, we must learn how to see anew, turning away from our natural disposition towards our libido vivendi and instead, modeling ourselves after Christ’s perfect example of kenotic love.
