Beauty by Contemplation
When a young man, I had opportunity to visit the Louvre in Paris, France. As one walks through the Louvre studying its marvelous collection of paintings from the hands of the great masters, he is struck by the number of young artists he sees with brush and easel, sitting in front of the great masterpieces trying to make copies of them. As the visitor watches one of these young artists he will observe that he sits and gazes at the masterpiece for a long time and then, scarcely taking his eyes off it, he slowly turns, picks up his brush, and makes a few careful strokes on the canvas before him. Then he turns and gazes intently at the masterpiece again. Thus the process goes on day after day. The young artist is filling his soul with the masterpiece before him and is trying to catch something of the spirit and genius of the old master who painted it.
Thus our young artists are made accomplished masters themselves, though never rising to the excellency of expression of the originals. And so it is with the Christian as he lives in the presence of the Master day by day contemplating His love, His character, His beauty. He receives more and more of his Master’s spirit and beauty. “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed.” (2 Cor 3:18)
~ Bishop Ogles, Logos of St Andrew, Fall 2000
