Yesterday I met with a group of plein air artists in Marshville, NC,  at Mary Erickson’s large, beautiful farm.  I find such an experience extremely challenging, delightful, and thought provoking.  

I am also reading Gene Edward Veith’s Painter’s of Faith.  He focuses on the Hudson River School but also upon the state of mind that led those artists to create the masterpieces that they did. I feel like I’ve been hearing the same voice they heard affirming my faith in the Creator.  

Is is interesting that John Ruskin who also wrote from a decidedly  Protestant Reformed perspective and who, too,  describes his philosophy of art in many of the same terms as the Hudson River School found little  to draw him to their work. He  preferred  to promote  J.M.W. Turner and had little regard for many of the Old Masters whom they respected.    But as Turner was writing, his theories first published in 1843, the early American artists were coming to the same critical theories as Ruskin “because they both grew out of the same theological persuasion”(p. 31).

An agreement in theory then, does not produce mindless repetition of style, but rather an appreciation of underlying principles , in this case, as Thomas Cole says, “That which the artist should aim at is the perfect perception of the Divine Beauty, the witness and seal of the hand of God in all his works” (p. 31)

I’ve often mentioned  reading Harold Speed’s The Practice and Science of Drawing, as a pivotal  point  for me. It was at that point I began to see why the visual arts draw me to God. It is not a religious book, but every page confirmed the glory of God revealed in principles of beauty.  Painter’s of Faith  brings more clarity to my reaction to Speed.