Art to Heart Call to Worship

Claude Monet: Poplars

©2002 by Jeff Dugan

Impressionism is all about capturing the essence of a single, precious moment in time.  And probably no artist was more committed to that ideal than the quintessential Impressionist, Claude Monet.  For him, it simply would not do to try to paint an imagined scene, or even to work from a photograph or a sketch.  Instead, he insisted on painting directly from nature.

That insistence could present problems, as was the case for this painting and several others he made from the same spot on the river.  You see, Monet felt that when the lighting changed, the moment he was trying to capture was gone.  So to complete a painting like this required many trips to the site at the right time of day, hoping for just the right atmospheric effects, so that he could continue to work on the painting for a few more minutes.

But it happened that while he was at work painting these poplar trees, the landowner decided to sell the trees for lumber.  Most artists would either abandon their project, or hurry to complete the work, or finish the work from memory.  But Monet’s solution was to buy the land in order to preserve the scene until he had captured it properly.

The result was this painting, whose beauty tells us something of why Monet was willing to sacrifice to preserve the trees.  One man, the landowner, had looked at the trees and seen only lumber.  But Monet had seen them and perceived an eternal beauty, which he captured here.  Aren’t you glad that Monet had the ability to see more than just lumber in a stand of trees?

It’s an important question, because there are those who would tell you that your life is just a chance occurrence resulting from a series of chemical reactions – that you’re really no more than just so much lumber waiting to be cut.  But on the other hand, there is the word of God, which tells us we can be re-born into a new life – with a value that’s worthy of an immense sacrifice.  You can listen to the woodcutter, who’s sharpening his axe, or you can join us today to worship the Creator, who sees in you a creation of eternal beauty.