(Pondering, after seeing Marc Chagall’s chapel in Nice, France. What a nice closing prayer to his life–especially the piano, with ascending prophets seen, only as you open it, and it is played–their words came alive as the vibration of the chords were struck! Felt true).

When I see pieces like these, i think ok, there, is an imagination in dialogue. That artist started to enter the “thou” , or soul or being of that subject, and had his or her own language developed enough to enter a saturated conversation.

I like overhearing or overseeing such instances. And when we do, something in us gets awakened to the potential contours of a single dialogue or conversation. There are so many levels to each instant-as the post-impressionist taught us. One sunset is worth a thousand meditations-and uniquely nuanced pondering of the same passing instant.

But then, when an artist turns to the universal and transcendent stories of scripture, and is able to move from the distance of illustration into a direct conversation with the spirit of the thing, you just sense it and know it, and are overwhelmed, by the depth of encounter. The artist pondering the word, symbolizes the human pondering God. And that is a majestically simple but profound sign of who we are as humans.

What is interesting is that you barely notice the technique at that point. The mature artist’s technical skills become concealed or in service to the dialogue with his or her subject. That is not to say technique or medium doesn’t matter, it is as if it is, in the matured artist, hidden from sight, and in service to the higher conversation between the artist and subject. It becomes an act of sheer beholding.

That type of art, signals and even compels one to enter the exchange. This is not just self expression, but self to self interchange; wherein, the I-Thou encounter starts to form a mid-air and mid-medium dance of being. Some portraits are like this, where the true identity of the subject is so honorably beheld, and so tenderly deep, that you feel as if you have met that person, or subject on some level. I have been there, i have seen that field, i have smelled those autumn fields. I have looked into those eyes.

With others you feel the violation or projective seeing. Then you are primarily looking at the artist’s wounds, and how it sees Reality. That is more like reading an autobiography, I think. But, I am most interested in pieces where this level of communion between seer and seen occurs.

Identity beholding identity is the stuff of true communion.

There is a teaching of perceiving itself in great art. How to see unseen layers of meaning in the subject. To see that there is more to even each instant than we imagined; that a simple evening cafe scene can become a universal metaphor of humanity trying to find evening’s sabbath, is one of the gifts of the artist. There is more than immediately meets the eye. Reality is complex and nuanced. And great art makes a portion of that complexity visible to the naked eye.

Even our own act at looking at art, is about us watching perception itself trying to say, this is what I saw. Not all of what I saw, but the part I could translate. That’s art.

I like beholding people on this level of being; other artist, like landscapes, or animals, color itself, texture, patterns. Regardless of what is beheld, it is the act of beholding-and its depth-that we are looking at when we view art.

What of the artist’s being was risked in the gaze? To the degree that it cost the gazer in them, the art is profound. To the degree that we perceive, we engage in the mysticism of seeing. Perhaps, we can only see to the degree that we are seen. Or perhaps, we are trying to see in order to be seen, as in the case of some artist. Either way, the radiance of resonance in a piece of art, has to do with the depth of sight and exchange between who is seeing and what is seen. That is the I-Thou opportunity in art making.

The power of true perception is underrated in terms of the healing of our own eyes or our deeper “I” through which we interpret even ourselves. In this sense, looking at art is truly healing. It is a particular brand of healing, but there is this cleansing of perception which osmotically occurs in beholding great art. This is not a cultural thing. It is a human need. For when we see someone seeing truly, we ourselves are somehow healed.