The Prodigal Son

This Thursday our D&C class went to an art museum exhibit called “The Image Speaks: Intimations of Divinity”. As a great art aficionado, I really enjoyed this experience. One piece I especially enjoyed was called “The Prodigal Son” by Bruce H. Smith. Unlike any other painting I've seen of this biblical story, this painting was abstract and did not show a son or his father. In fact, the pigs were the only characters in the story accurately represented. The most defining feature of this piece of work is a blue cloth which covers the whole painting. The painting is organized in a triptych to represent three stages in the story: before the son left home, after the son left, and when the son returned. What was interesting to note was that if the first and third sections in the painting were placed together, the combined cloth forms the same shape as the cloth in the middle panel. The cloth represents the love of God, which is over us no matter what our actions are. Another very interesting feature in this piece is that the clarity with which the fruit portrayed under the cloth represents the clarity with which the son understood his situation and place in the world. At the beginning of the story, represented by the left section, the son was naïve, but stayed with and worked for his family. In the middle section, the son had lost all clarity. The painting had the blurriest forms in this section. At the end of the story, the son had his understanding restored and had even more clarity when he realized the error of his ways. Unsurprisingly, the third panel of the painting is clearer than any other parts of the painting. This was a beautiful painting that really touched me.