St. Paul's Conversion


I got an email today reminding me that it's the feast of St. Paul's conversion.  So I looked it up and found this on Wikipedia.  This piece is by Caravaggio.  I don't really know much about him but I liked what his biographer said about what he had painted.
Caravaggio biographer Helen Langdon describes style of Conversion as "an odd blend of Raphael and clumsy rustic realism," but notes how the composition, with its jagged shapes and irrational light which licks out details for their dramatic impact, creates "a sense of crisis and dislocation [in which] Christ disrupts the mundane world."
Her observations about this painting hits a chord.  When talking about Christ, there always seems to be that painful sting that one experiences before that "overflow of love" can be comprehended.  Paradox. Irony.  Living in the crux and tension of everyday life while trying to behold the unseen and the sacred. I ponder a lot about these things but do not really get my mind wrapped around it.  I hope one day, I will. 

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