An Artist’s Eye – May 09, 1999
A newborn baby laid in its mother’s arms is a bundle of potentialities. For one so small, knowing little and recognizing even less, it will take an artist’s eye, an eye born of hope and love, to trace the child’s possibilities.
The sculptor Michelangelo’s name is on a plaque affixed to a large block of marble in a gallery in Florence, Italy. At first glance, the stone seems unmarked by the artist’s chisel. However, a closer look reveals the bare outlines of a face emerging from a rock, contorted in the effort of pushing free. Close to the face is a shoulder breaking through the stone—a shoulder with tense and knotted muscles, straining to liberate the hidden arm. The rough marble block is a stone prison, a human form within it struggling to be free.
Michelangelo intended this work to be an allegory of his experience as an artist. Looking at chunks of unfinished marble, he could see within them radiant beings—each a potential masterpiece and each struggling for liberation in his artist’s imagination. He could discern the beauty in the heart of the stone. And with that vision, he labored to set the possibility free.
We are each born as potential masterpieces. Laid in a mother’s arms, it is her nurturing that fosters the infant’s survival. Her laboring does not cease with birth, but continues as she discerns the promise of that child.
All the everyday services of a mother—all the interest and care, the loyalty and encouragement—are demonstrations of her faith in the possibilities of that child. She sees with an artist’s eye the glorious potential, and then labors to set it free.
As we strive toward achievement in our lives, remember that it takes a mother’s eye and the imagination of an artist to see the possibilities.
Program #3638