"What is distinctive about Christ is not his physical appearance but his spiritual power. The question then arises, How does an artist communicate spiritual power? The best kept secret for most artists is that one of the strongest ways in art to communicate such power is to appeal to the knowledge and experiences of the viewer. Once an image has sufficient form to clearly communicate that Latter-Day Saints really do believe that Christ was a historical figure, that he did come to earth, that he did have a body, that this body was real and not just some sort of metaphysical manifestation, then the challenge is to communicate the Savior’s spirituality by accessing the inherent spirituality of the viewer. The best way to do so is to let the viewer be involved in the creation of the work of art.
"Drawing out viewers spirituality is an intriguing undertaking. I find when I look at a Rembrandt painting that it continues to invite viewer involvement even after four centuries. This is how Rembrandt does it: He understood that the aspect of a person that tells the most about spirituality and emotions is the face and in the face, the eyes and the corners of the mouth. Notice that when people feel embarrassed they tend to look down or they tend to put their hand over their mouth because they feel emotionally naked and vulnerable.
"When Rembrandt did a portrait or when he painted Christ, he would often place the eyes and the corners of the mouth in shadow, thereby forcing viewers to fill in what is in the shadow, to bring everything they know about Christ to the image. But more importantly, the viewers bring everything they feel about Christ based on their personal experiences with Him. Because how they feel about the subject is part of the visual creation, the viewers read what Rembrandt put there plus what they just inserted. In doing so, they are involved in creating that work. Rembrandt understood that sometimes less detail is more spiritual power in a somewhat different fashion.
"Walter Rane, a contemporary Latter-Day Saint artist, applies the same principle to his own paintings of the Savior. In He Anointed the Eyes of the Blind Man, he eliminated extraneous details to help us focus on both the Savior’s power and the man’s great faith. When we look at Rane’s treatment of the Savior’s lower body we realize how that simplification increases the healing’s impact on the viewer—the energy of the painting flows from the face of the Savior down through his hands, to the face, torso, and hands of the blind man.
He Anointed the Eyes of the Blind Man
Walter Rane
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