Art to Heart Invitation

J.M.W. Turner: Snowstorm: Steamboat off a Harbor's Mouth

©2002 by Jeff Dugan

This may look a bit like the kind of modern art that so many of us find so incomprehensible.  In actuality, though, it was painted in 1842, by an artist who was obviously well ahead of his time. 

Although Turner did not embrace pure abstraction like artists of the 20^th century did, he was among the first to so boldly turn away from a photorealistic vision in the pursuit of enhanced expressiveness.  And who can deny that this painting is powerfully expressive of the turmoil to which this steamboat is subjected in the midst of a violent, tumultuous storm at sea?  It’s not pretty, but it’s not intended to be.  It’s meant to communicate in a very visceral way the torment suffered by the steamboat at the whim of the world around it.

And yet, the steamboat is not overcome by the storm.  It need not rely on the world for wind; it has its own internal power source.  As the winds howl and the waves crash, the steam engine simply churns the harder.  In Turner’s day, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, viewers might have seen in the bright light surrounding the boat a testimony to the hope that technology would give mankind the final victory over nature.

Today we’re more likely to understand that such a final victory is impossible.  But in the context of the New Testament, that light around the boat is not an inappropriate indication of the hope that Paul had in the faithfulness of God as he obediently endured a seemingly constant storm of dangers, toils, and snares.

That storm still rages today, and many of us feel like we live in the midst of it.  If you trust your own resources, or the solutions offered by the world, you are doomed for shipwreck.  But there is a vessel that can be trusted. Won’t you trust Jesus Christ to carry your soul to a harbor of safety and peace?