The Bible, decked with jewels and precious metals, was placed just above waist level -- the perfect height for us to bow and kiss it. And that's what would have happened in the Orthodox church for which the holy book was created. But if we'd tried that here, our lips would have bumped into a glass barrier, and a kindly young lady would probably have told us we should leave.
My friends and I were at an exhibit of Ukrainian art, primarily religious art. The exhibit (at the Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C., through January 16) features stunning icons, altar crosses, and similar church art. But it brought home to me the strangeness of what is now a common experience: a Christian believer encountering Christian art not in a church or home or plaza, but in a museum.
The encounter with sublimity in art can leave us overwhelmed, speechless. But speech returns soon -- and with it, self-consciousness, an awkward sense of watching ourselves watching the art. Even in church, my response to art is rarely entirely and uninterruptedly contemplative and religious. There's usually some tinge of the spectator or the critic. (Maybe this is the price I pay for reviewing art for money!)
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