After reflecting on Isaiah Chapter 43 yesterday, and particularly on the phrase which stood out first (“I have called you by name, you are mine”), Miriam suggested that I look at the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus from the Gospel of Luke Chapter 19; Zacchaeus also felt called by Jesus.
We talked about how I found listening to music helpful in order to reflect on yesterday’s passage and understand it; and how I also like to look at works of art to inspire prayer and reflections on a text. Miriam suggested I draw today’s reflection. I haven’t drawn an “imagined” scene since school - and then I usually doodled imaginary buildings or maps and plans of imagined cities rather than people. I’m not very good at sketching people from life let alone memory!
I didn’t want to google any other interpretations of the scene that might influence my drawing, so first I read the passage. This text is from the New Revised Standard Version;
Luke 19.1-10
Jesus and Zacchaeus
He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’
Then I read the same passage in my Africa Study Bible. The text was very similar but this version explained that the sycamore tree was a sycamore fig tree.
I used a technique of lectio divina to help me to pray on and visualise the text. After that I felt inspired to draw. The fig tree made me think of the garden of Eden. I thought I would draw Zacchaeus giving Jesus a fig leaf as he sits in the tree (or is Jesus taking it from him?) When I googled what a fig leaf looks like, to help me draw it, I saw that it looked a bit like a heart.
I didn’t have time today to finish my drawing but sketched out the main parts. The picture shows the moment that Jesus meets Zacchaeus. Jesus is in the centre reaching out his arms both to Zacchaeus and the rest of the crowd. Jericho is in the background. On the right of the picture Zacchaeus is crouching in the tree holding out a fig leaf which also looks like a heart. Money is falling from his clothes.
There are a number of things I didn’t manage to capture as well as I would have liked. Today I had been very busy at work and hadn’t had as much time in the evening to draw as I had hoped. In hindsight I thought that perhaps the heart and fig leaf should be in the centre of the image. Also I wasn’t happy with the divide between the city in the background on the left of the page and the tree on the right. It gave a “city bad, countryside good” impression (not helped by my choice of colours) which on reflection I am not sure I wanted to convey. In the same way, while Zacchaeus is much smaller than everyone else in the picture, his eyeline is higher than the others. If I drew the scene again I think I would prefer to make the eyeline of Zacchaeus, Jesus and the crowd equal. In terms of colour and texture I showed the jealous pointing crowd with large eyes - Francis Bacon style! In hindsight I would prefer to find a way of making the crowd, Jesus and Zacchaeus look similar. While Jesus is shown reaching out his hands to everyone I would prefer to show a stronger visual link between each of the figures.
I thought a more abstract version of the picture might have removed some of these unintended representational visual cues. Perhaps a circle containing the crowd with a form (Zacchaeus) on the edge somehow connected to the circle? I remembered seeing paintings of the Cosmic Christ by Terry Fyffe and felt that my time on the retreat today gave me a new understanding and appreciation of this type of abstract art.
Definitely something to come back to in the future! Today has helped me get over the “blank sheet of paper syndrome” when it comes to imaginative drawing. I found it hard to draw lifelike figures, so I had to use one of those wooden models to help me. Perhaps next time I will draw solely from my minds eye?!
Definitely something to come back to in the future! Today has helped me get over the “blank sheet of paper syndrome” when it comes to imaginative drawing. I found it hard to draw lifelike figures, so I had to use one of those wooden models to help me. Perhaps next time I will draw solely from my minds eye?!
Here is my sketch.
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