Art, Exegesis, and Interpretation
An Essay on the Art of the Parable of the Prodigal Son
by Lee Magness
“WE WOULD SEE JESUS”:
SEEING THE PRODIGAL SON WITH ARTISTIC EYES
Lee Magness
Introduction
It was a group of highly cultured Greeks who once said to the apostle Philip, “We would see Jesus” (John 12.20-21). Most contemporary encounters with Christ are literary, oral, or aural. We listen to lectures and sermons; we read the Gospels and Gospel commentaries. But these resources can be and must be supplemented by the artistic, by the visual. Individuals, whether believers or seekers, and institutions, whether affiliated with the church or with the general culture, need not only to hear and read about Jesus but also to visualize Jesus. Speaking as a biblical exegete and as a preacher, I affirm that the artist must ever stand beside the preacher and the scribe. We would see Jesus.
The same is true for the teachings of Jesus. One example of how the visual arts advance our biblical understanding is the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15.11-32). Students of the New Testament commonly identify this parable as the greatest of all Jesus’ parables, telling the story of sin and salvation, of ingratitude and grace, in one succinct story. Students of literature have labeled it as one of the greatest short stories ever written, featuring a compelling plot, clearly drawn characters, and an enigmatic ending. Readers find in it the full range of vices and virtues common to human behavior. Fortunately artists have also been drawn to this masterful story. Poets, novelists, dramatists, choreographers, composers, and filmmakers have all added their interpretations of the parable to the vast storehouse of exegetical interpretation. And for well over five hundred years now painters have been persistently drawn to draw the parable of the prodigal son. If we are truly to understand the spiritual implications of this quintessential teaching, we must ever see it afresh, through and with artistic eyes.
The eyes of these centuries of painters have fallen most often on one of three scenes. First, they frequently depict the younger son “squandering his substance in riotous living,” drinking and carousing with women, often accompanied by gambling and music. Second, they often picture the younger son living among the pigs, sometimes dejectedly, sometimes repentantly, sometimes longingly. And third, they commonly portray the father welcoming the younger son home, perhaps with the older son present but emotionally distant.
As early as 1496 one of Albrecht Durer’s engravings[1] depicted the prodigal among the pigs, looking longingly up and away from his circumstances. Northern European artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries maintained their focus on the far country, with the prodigal either among the pigs (Beham) or in the tavern or brothel (van Hemessen, Hornthorst, Baeck). Italian painters of the same period (Bassano, Spada, Il Guercino, and Palma il Giovane) preferred the scene of reunion with the father. Salvator Rosa’s depiction of the prodigal in the pigpen is an exception. During the middle of the seventeenth century one southern painter, Murillo of Spain, and one northern painter, Rembrandt of the Netherlands, felt the magnetic pull of all parts of the parable, expressed in a series of paintings based on the parable. Murillo painted the son’s departure, extravagance, life among the pigs, repentance, and return. Rembrandt depicted the younger son drinking in a brothel, living among the pigs, and again and again returning to the father. His masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal, the most famous painting of the parable, has not only inspired other artists but choreographers (Balanchine), composers (Britten), and theologians (Nouwen).
After Pompeo Batoni’s painting of the return of the prodigal (Italy, 1773), interest in the parable shifted northward. Nineteenth century artistic versions emerged from the Netherlands (Maris, 1859), Russia (Polenov, 1874), France (Puvis de Chavannes, 1879, and Tissot, 1880s), England (Swan, 1888), and Germany (Slevogt, 1899). Distinctive among these depictions is the dark work by Matthijs Maris, who presents the viewer with a returned but dying prodigal, tended to by a female figure, his father standing off in the shadows. James Tissot returned often to the parable in a series of paintings, which retold the story in modern settings.
American painters turned their attention to the prodigal son in the twentieth century. Notable examples include Thomas Hart Benton’s Depression-era depiction of the prodigal’s return (1939) and John August Swanson’s series set in Hispanic California (1971). Jonathan Quist offers an introspective African-American view of the return of the prodigal (1975), while Mary McCleary envisions the celebratory banquet on a Texas ranch (1996). Other noteworthy American scenes of the prodigal’s return include paintings by Robert Barnum (2000) and Christopher Koelle (2008).
But painters from America did not own this parable in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Insightful artistic interpretations come from around the globe. Max Beckman (German, 1949) invites us back to the brothel, as did so many of his northern European predecessors. Frank Wesley, an Indian Christian painting in a Hindu context, provides a poignant and intimate look at the spent son collapsing against the firm frame of his elderly father. A Chinese farm is the site of He Qi’s return of the prodigal. All that is so familiar to us—the kneeling son, the embracing father, the hard-working elder son—is suddenly and significantly defamiliarized by the welcoming well and restorative bowl of rice. Oleg Korolev (Russia, 2005) offers a spiritualized vision of the reunion of son and father, as the son emerges from the deepest darkness and merges with the glorious light of the father, which seems to glow radiantly from the canvas. Andrei Rabodzeenko (Kirgizstan, 2006) borrows the style and symbolism of Hieronymus Bosch in his contemporary re-creation of the prodigal in the far country.
But my point is not only to identify the vast number and diversity of painters who have seen something in the parable of the prodigal son that they must set to canvas. Even more I wish to affirm that artistic representations of a Gospel story illuminate and interpret the teaching itself in ways that supplement and inform the lessons we learn from more traditional sources of scriptural insight like sermons and commentaries. I offer two examples for all those who would not only hear about Jesus and his teachings but “would see Jesus.”
Edward Riojas
One artistic exegesis of the parable appears in the work of the wonderful contemporary American artist, Edward Riojas. “The Prodigal Son” (2004) is a modern triptych showing three interconnected landscapes and three scenes from the parable. Our eyes travel with the prodigal, starting in the far country, trudging home, and catching sight of father and farm. One would think, from the orientation of the prodigal, the movement of the father, and the bright pigments of the wheat field, that our focus would fall on the right side of the painting. But there is something mesmerizing about the dark and dangerous far country that lies behind the son. Smoke curls up and clouds the sky. Dim houses huddle in the half-light, wall to wall. No grass, no fields, no parks, no people enliven the landscape. Skulls grin from the shadowed rock, bare and barren. It is a dirty place, where humans, so eager to enrich themselves, have besmirched the sky and befouled the land. It is a dark place, where human enterprise has blocked out the light that once filled the sky and floodlit the fields and lit their lives. It is a desolate place, isolated from light and life. It is a destructive place, destroying the earth, the sky, the human spirit itself. And it is a place of death, the death of everything given by God for the life of humankind, and the death of the humankind God gave everything to and for.
But there is more, towers and cards and coins. The towers are temples, ziggurats, Mesopotamian pyramids built by the Babylonians to honor their gods—the god of the polluted sky, the god of the poisoned water, and the god of the profaned land. Life in the far country is a life of idolatry, of founding their faith on anything and everything other than God. The cards are tarot cards, magic mirrors onto the futility of their yin-yang lives, meager attempts to manipulate the trajectory of human life, to forge their own paths to the divine. Life in the far country is a life of sorcery, of fixing their hope on anything and everything other than God. And the coins are the currency of contemporary culture, the worthless slugs they slip again and again into the slots labeled “happiness” and “fulfillment” and “meaning,” the little gods in whom they trust. Life in the far country is a life of illusion, of placing their trust in anything and everything other than God. Riojas suggests that the far country, the prodigal life, is a life in which we waste our faith and squander our hope and throw away our trust. The far country, the prodigal life, is life without God.
The center of the painting is dominated by the figure of the prodigal himself. His once rich robe is now ragged, tattered, torn, threadbare. His body is bent, sinewy but bent, barely able to support his slouching shoulders or his drooping head. His once youthful face is now weathered, worse for the wear, worn, beaten, bearded beyond his years. His limp hair hangs, like his clothes, like his skin, like his arms, like his eyes, lowered, not just unwilling but unable to look up the lane that his feet feel as if for the first time. His left hand is poised on the post. The gate is gone, the way is clear, no bar, no lock, no barrier. But his pointed fingers pause on the post, he stands flatfooted at the gate, and his gaunt frame freezes at the front door. He hesitates, even now, as he sees through his lowered lashes his running father, running to meet him through the waving wheat, through the bright-scented air, from the welcoming house on the hill.
He does not hesitate because the far country has corrupted his image of his father, his generous, gracious father. It is the image of his father that draws him home. It is the compassionate spirit of his father that accompanies him, like a dove, wherever he roams. The far country has corrupted his image of himself. He has become only what he owns, his worth is only what he’s worth, his personhood is defined by his productivity, meaning is made up of deities he has manufactured. The far country has almost convinced him that he is either a god, creating himself in his own image, or an animal, a pig, intelligent but unclean, part of the herd but hermetically sealed off, stymied, lost, alone. Riojas paints a prodigal son, a prodigal life, in which we squander not only our substance but our selves, selves created by God, created to live in relationship with God. The prodigal represents all of us who need to come to ourselves and reclaim the reality of life in God.
The right side of the painting features the father. What light can Riojas shed on the forgiving father? Some things are obvious. The father lives in the light, but it is not unapproachable light; it is a warm and welcoming light. The father provides out of his abundance, from fields of wheat, their full-grown grain standing ready to be reaped. The father runs, runs, mind you, down the well-paved lane, not hunkered down in that massive mansion on the hill, now a hut on the horizon. And the father has already engaged his servants in a parade of presents, even before the prodigal has returned, even before he has repented.
Other things are not quite so obvious. The white dove shadowing the slumped shoulder of the son, the Spirit of God, suggests that the persistent presence of father has been with him every step, every wingbeat of the way, to the far country, in the far country, returning from the far country. Riojas visually reminds us that God waits, waits patiently for the return of his recalcitrant son; that God welcomes, eagerly, prodigally, extravagantly; that God wings his way, persistently providing his spiritual presence, wherever we may wander; that God runs, recklessly to meet us and greet us, not in his tapestried rooms but on the road, not at home but on our way home.
But where is the elder son in this artistic depiction of the parable of the Prodigal Son? The elder son of the parable appears to be missing in action. Is he back home lounging in the lap of luxury or reveling in the ripe-unto-harvest fields or plowing the seeds of his own self-righteousness? Riojas does not tell us, does not show us.
But there is an elder son, the true elder son, in this painting. He hangs on a cross, in the darkness, on a bare and barren rock, a place of the skull, hanging out over the valley of the shadow of darkness and dirtiness and desolation and destruction and death, yes, even death. Riojas echoes the apostle Paul—“for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”—and brushes in an elder brother, sent at a dear and desperate cost from the ever-present, ever-pained, father of all us prodigals.
We see so much through the eyes of this artist that went only whispered in the words. We see that the far country, our sin, our life on the dark side, is characterized not only by the way we have dingied and dirtied and destroyed and defiled and put to death everything that is living and lovely around us, but even more by the way we have misplaced our faith, our hope, and our trust, misdirected our worship, by worshiping the signs of God in the world around us and in ourselves, the very signs and selves we simultaneously destroy, instead of worshiping only the loving and living God. This is, surprisingly enough, a parable about idolatry.
We see that the younger son, both in the depths of depravity and on the very doorstep of reconciliation, is plagued not so much by a mistaken understanding of God but of himself. Even in the midst of rebellion against God, as we live out our bent lives, we remember God, we miss the benefits of a close relationship with God. It is ourselves we forget, that we are created in God’s image and likeness, that we share God’s nature, that we are meant to live intimately with the living and loving God. This is, surprisingly enough, a parable not just about coming back to God but about coming to our selves.
We see that the father, God, does not dwell in unapproachable light. God is approachable and, more amazing yet, God approaches. God sprints toward the darkness, trailing the light, his love, his good gifts, in his wake, able to wait for and at the same time welcome our return. And the God who waits and runs and welcomes is in fact with us in all our wandering all along the way. This is, surprisingly enough, a parable about the God who does not wait.
And we see that, when we are the elder son, we are often shamefully absent from the celebration, but that there is an elder son hanging in there with all us prodigals, insinuating himself into the silences of our dark lives. It is he, the one who bends over the whole bent world, whose pain marks the pathway from darkness to light. This parable of Jesus is, surprisingly enough, a parable about Jesus.
James Janknegt
The second artistic exegesis of the parable of the prodigal son is also a triptych, this one from 2002 by James Janknegt, another contemporary American painter. On the left, from early in the parable, the younger son sits in the far country. In the center, from the middle of the parable, are the father and the servants, welcoming the younger son home from his urban exile. On the right, the older son sits in a far country of his own making, while the welcome-home cookout goes on in the background. Janknegt entitled his painting, “Two Sons,” recognizing that from beginning to end there are two sons in the story, a fact overlooked by many artists and downplayed by some biblical interpreters. After a careful analysis of this multifaceted artistic representation, I would be tempted to suggest an alternate title— “The Father’s Persistent Presence.”
In the left panel the younger son is already ensconced in the far country. He has already demanded his inheritance and liquidated his assets, already fled to the far country and “squandered his substance.” He has already found himself without resources and without recourse, without finances or friends or family, famished, trapped in a country not only far but beset by famine. Janknegt offers us a younger son already desperate, already despondent. The dejected son sits surrounded by the evidences and effects of life in the far country. The far country is a far city; a red car cruises the streets amid skyscrapers that dominate the urban landscape. A billboard advertises the strip clubs around the corner, the sight of his debauchery or the object of his daydreams. He sits on the steps of the Golden Arches Cafe, his pigpen, dressed in the uniform of his below-poverty-level job. He’s been rooting, like a pig, through a tipped-over garbage can, hoping to ease his hunger on Happy Meal scraps. He ponders his condition, head cocked, chin on hand, eyeing the sign at a bus stop, a way home perhaps. All in all an interesting modern depiction of the plight of the prodigal!
But there looming in the upper right corner is something truly provocative—the head, the face, of his farmer father. Janknegt seems to be suggesting that no matter how far the son fled from his father, no matter how much he disregarded his father, distanced himself from his father’s place and principles, the father was never far from his son. That face highlights what we otherwise might miss in the parable—how much the father is on the mind and lips of the son. “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired hands.”’ And he arose and went to his father.” The son, even at his lowest, even at his “lostest,” was keenly aware of the persistent presence of his father.
In the central panel, the father runs to welcome his son home. The top border depicts the various means of transportation used by the wealthy son for his flight far from his father—a day and a night and another day of jet planes. The bottom border reveals his significantly slower journey home. The jet-setting has definitely come to an
end—buses give way to cars to beat-up pickups to sneakers to bare feet. It is in fact on bare feet that the son walks home from the dazzling city in the desert. He trudges from yellowed grass and cactus to the green fields of a rolling farm. Still the son seems a bit hesitant.
But the father runs with open arms, out onto the open road where he has spied his son approaching. He has already mobilized the farmhands, who follow close behind, one with a blue jacket, just like dad’s, another with a ring, a third with boots. The father, the largest figure in the panel, dominates the center of the parable. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and [he] felt compassion, and [he] ran and [he] embraced him and [he] kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.” It is the father who acts—he catches sight, even though he never lost sight; he is consumed with compassion; he runs, yes, runs; he holds him to his bosom like the baby boy he has always been; he covers him with careless kisses; he calls, for a robe and a ring, for shoes and a celebration. The father who was persistently present even in his absence, is now fully present.
One other troubling image lurks in the central panel. In the upper right corner an ominous, clown-like figure watches the homecoming and reunion. Is it an image of the elder son? Is Janknegt suggesting that the elder son is also persistently present in the story, haunted by his brother’s abandonment and absence, jealous of his brother’s imagined life in the far country, now irritated by and envious of his father’s warm welcome.
In the right panel, the disgruntled older son boycotts the banquet. The celebration is in full swing. Family and friends feast at the table on the green lawn. The band plays in the background. The older son sits on a tree stump, refusing to participate in the spirit of the occasion. He angrily, foolishly, breaks his guitar in half, refusing to share in the music, the food, the joy. A skull reminds us that it is the elder son who is now dead, dead to his father, not the younger son who was dead but is now alive. He has fled to his own far country, squandering his substance with his own brand of prodigality. He speaks to his father with the same disregard and disrespect with which the younger son had acted. “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, came back, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
But there looming in the upper left corner is something truly provocative—the head, the face of his farmer father. No matter how hard the heart of the elder son has become, no matter how much he disregarded and disrespected his father, distanced himself, without moving an inch, from his father’s place and principles, the father was never far from this son either. Janknegt helps us see that the father looks on his older son’s anger with the same sad love and mercy as he did on the younger son in the left panel. The words he spoke to the older son echo from earlier in the parable—“Son (older son, younger son, every son, every son and daughter), you are always with me (because I am always with you, far country or near), and all that is mine is yours (all you demand, all you don’t, all you spend, all you save, all you want or wish or waste). It was fitting to celebrate and be glad (for him, for me, for you, for all of us), for this your brother (yes, your brother, if my son then your brother), was dead (like you) and is alive; he was lost (like you), and is found.’” The older son—even at his haughtiest—must be keenly aware of the persistent presence of his father.
Reading the parable through the eyes of an artist illuminates some aspects of its meaning even more vividly than solely reading the text. The behavior of younger, prodigal sons—squandered opportunities, self-serving, self-gratifying, sinful relationships—matters, but it is not the main point of the parable. The behavior of older, obedient sons—fulfilled opportunities, services rendered, other-oriented, sacrificial, healthy and healing relationships—matters, but it is also not the main point. The message of the painting and of the parable is the persistently present father, the father who watches over his sons and daughters no matter how un-son-like, how un-daughter-like they are, the father who can see us when we think we’re out of sight, the father who peers into whatever sad situation we find ourselves, not pruriently but persistently, not condemningly but compassionately, the father who can see us when we are right under his nose, thinking we know everything, know best, about our younger siblings, our sinner siblings, about God, our too-gracious, too-merciful, too-forgiving God, about our selves, our sinful, self-righteous selves. He is the father who always welcomes us home, who always celebrates our presence, and he is the father whose persistent presence we must always celebrate.
Summary
I have spent most of my academic career studying the Greek text of the New Testament, its language and its structure. I have had the joy of gleaning insight after insight into the meaning of the writings of the New Testament from that linguistic and literary study. And I have benefited professionally and personally from the writings of others from across the centuries and from around the world who have exegeted and interpreted and applied those writings in journals, books, and sermons. But now I must testify to the storehouse of insight that yet awaits the student of the Bible who is willing to see what others have seen in their artistic encounters with those same texts. I understand the nature of the prodigal’s life in the far country and the possibilities for reconciliation with the older brother better for having heard and seen the provocative opera by Benjamin Britten. I am forced to consider the pain of the prodigal’s return and the pain of the father’s forgiveness more deeply when I view George Balanchine’s choreographic interpretation. It is a novel, not a commentary, Marilynne Robinson’s Home, which helps me see the parable through the eyes of a sympathetic “older brother.” Christina Rossetti’s poetry lets me see the light in the father’s window immediately and always burning. A River Runs Through It, one of modern cinema’s most beautiful and powerful productions, forces me to understand how Jesus’ ancient parable gets lived out in our everyday lives over and over.
The art of biblical interpretation—the traditional practices of exegesis and hermeneutics and homiletics—must be supplemented by the arts. Anyone who wishes to encounter Jesus on any terms and from any perspective must recognize that we will see Jesus more clearly if we use more than one lens. The academic lens of linguistic, literary, sociological, and theological analysis serves as a useful magnifying glass in our attempts to understand the Teacher and his teachings. But when the additional lens of artistic interpretation is added, we see Jesus not only through the opaque pages of sermon manuscripts and commentaries but also through canvas and choreography, through musical score and cinematic image, through poetic words and dramatic actions. When the gospel is refracted through the whole range of human interpretation, we come closer to achieving that heart’s desire which we share in those ancient inquirers—“We would see Jesus.”
[1] Let me suggest that at any mention of a specific painting the reader feel free to pause and search the internet using the artist’s name and the phrase “prodigal son.”
SEEING THE PRODIGAL SON WITH ARTISTIC EYES
Lee Magness
Introduction
It was a group of highly cultured Greeks who once said to the apostle Philip, “We would see Jesus” (John 12.20-21). Most contemporary encounters with Christ are literary, oral, or aural. We listen to lectures and sermons; we read the Gospels and Gospel commentaries. But these resources can be and must be supplemented by the artistic, by the visual. Individuals, whether believers or seekers, and institutions, whether affiliated with the church or with the general culture, need not only to hear and read about Jesus but also to visualize Jesus. Speaking as a biblical exegete and as a preacher, I affirm that the artist must ever stand beside the preacher and the scribe. We would see Jesus.
The same is true for the teachings of Jesus. One example of how the visual arts advance our biblical understanding is the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15.11-32). Students of the New Testament commonly identify this parable as the greatest of all Jesus’ parables, telling the story of sin and salvation, of ingratitude and grace, in one succinct story. Students of literature have labeled it as one of the greatest short stories ever written, featuring a compelling plot, clearly drawn characters, and an enigmatic ending. Readers find in it the full range of vices and virtues common to human behavior. Fortunately artists have also been drawn to this masterful story. Poets, novelists, dramatists, choreographers, composers, and filmmakers have all added their interpretations of the parable to the vast storehouse of exegetical interpretation. And for well over five hundred years now painters have been persistently drawn to draw the parable of the prodigal son. If we are truly to understand the spiritual implications of this quintessential teaching, we must ever see it afresh, through and with artistic eyes.
The eyes of these centuries of painters have fallen most often on one of three scenes. First, they frequently depict the younger son “squandering his substance in riotous living,” drinking and carousing with women, often accompanied by gambling and music. Second, they often picture the younger son living among the pigs, sometimes dejectedly, sometimes repentantly, sometimes longingly. And third, they commonly portray the father welcoming the younger son home, perhaps with the older son present but emotionally distant.
As early as 1496 one of Albrecht Durer’s engravings[1] depicted the prodigal among the pigs, looking longingly up and away from his circumstances. Northern European artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries maintained their focus on the far country, with the prodigal either among the pigs (Beham) or in the tavern or brothel (van Hemessen, Hornthorst, Baeck). Italian painters of the same period (Bassano, Spada, Il Guercino, and Palma il Giovane) preferred the scene of reunion with the father. Salvator Rosa’s depiction of the prodigal in the pigpen is an exception. During the middle of the seventeenth century one southern painter, Murillo of Spain, and one northern painter, Rembrandt of the Netherlands, felt the magnetic pull of all parts of the parable, expressed in a series of paintings based on the parable. Murillo painted the son’s departure, extravagance, life among the pigs, repentance, and return. Rembrandt depicted the younger son drinking in a brothel, living among the pigs, and again and again returning to the father. His masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal, the most famous painting of the parable, has not only inspired other artists but choreographers (Balanchine), composers (Britten), and theologians (Nouwen).
After Pompeo Batoni’s painting of the return of the prodigal (Italy, 1773), interest in the parable shifted northward. Nineteenth century artistic versions emerged from the Netherlands (Maris, 1859), Russia (Polenov, 1874), France (Puvis de Chavannes, 1879, and Tissot, 1880s), England (Swan, 1888), and Germany (Slevogt, 1899). Distinctive among these depictions is the dark work by Matthijs Maris, who presents the viewer with a returned but dying prodigal, tended to by a female figure, his father standing off in the shadows. James Tissot returned often to the parable in a series of paintings, which retold the story in modern settings.
American painters turned their attention to the prodigal son in the twentieth century. Notable examples include Thomas Hart Benton’s Depression-era depiction of the prodigal’s return (1939) and John August Swanson’s series set in Hispanic California (1971). Jonathan Quist offers an introspective African-American view of the return of the prodigal (1975), while Mary McCleary envisions the celebratory banquet on a Texas ranch (1996). Other noteworthy American scenes of the prodigal’s return include paintings by Robert Barnum (2000) and Christopher Koelle (2008).
But painters from America did not own this parable in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Insightful artistic interpretations come from around the globe. Max Beckman (German, 1949) invites us back to the brothel, as did so many of his northern European predecessors. Frank Wesley, an Indian Christian painting in a Hindu context, provides a poignant and intimate look at the spent son collapsing against the firm frame of his elderly father. A Chinese farm is the site of He Qi’s return of the prodigal. All that is so familiar to us—the kneeling son, the embracing father, the hard-working elder son—is suddenly and significantly defamiliarized by the welcoming well and restorative bowl of rice. Oleg Korolev (Russia, 2005) offers a spiritualized vision of the reunion of son and father, as the son emerges from the deepest darkness and merges with the glorious light of the father, which seems to glow radiantly from the canvas. Andrei Rabodzeenko (Kirgizstan, 2006) borrows the style and symbolism of Hieronymus Bosch in his contemporary re-creation of the prodigal in the far country.
But my point is not only to identify the vast number and diversity of painters who have seen something in the parable of the prodigal son that they must set to canvas. Even more I wish to affirm that artistic representations of a Gospel story illuminate and interpret the teaching itself in ways that supplement and inform the lessons we learn from more traditional sources of scriptural insight like sermons and commentaries. I offer two examples for all those who would not only hear about Jesus and his teachings but “would see Jesus.”
Edward Riojas
One artistic exegesis of the parable appears in the work of the wonderful contemporary American artist, Edward Riojas. “The Prodigal Son” (2004) is a modern triptych showing three interconnected landscapes and three scenes from the parable. Our eyes travel with the prodigal, starting in the far country, trudging home, and catching sight of father and farm. One would think, from the orientation of the prodigal, the movement of the father, and the bright pigments of the wheat field, that our focus would fall on the right side of the painting. But there is something mesmerizing about the dark and dangerous far country that lies behind the son. Smoke curls up and clouds the sky. Dim houses huddle in the half-light, wall to wall. No grass, no fields, no parks, no people enliven the landscape. Skulls grin from the shadowed rock, bare and barren. It is a dirty place, where humans, so eager to enrich themselves, have besmirched the sky and befouled the land. It is a dark place, where human enterprise has blocked out the light that once filled the sky and floodlit the fields and lit their lives. It is a desolate place, isolated from light and life. It is a destructive place, destroying the earth, the sky, the human spirit itself. And it is a place of death, the death of everything given by God for the life of humankind, and the death of the humankind God gave everything to and for.
But there is more, towers and cards and coins. The towers are temples, ziggurats, Mesopotamian pyramids built by the Babylonians to honor their gods—the god of the polluted sky, the god of the poisoned water, and the god of the profaned land. Life in the far country is a life of idolatry, of founding their faith on anything and everything other than God. The cards are tarot cards, magic mirrors onto the futility of their yin-yang lives, meager attempts to manipulate the trajectory of human life, to forge their own paths to the divine. Life in the far country is a life of sorcery, of fixing their hope on anything and everything other than God. And the coins are the currency of contemporary culture, the worthless slugs they slip again and again into the slots labeled “happiness” and “fulfillment” and “meaning,” the little gods in whom they trust. Life in the far country is a life of illusion, of placing their trust in anything and everything other than God. Riojas suggests that the far country, the prodigal life, is a life in which we waste our faith and squander our hope and throw away our trust. The far country, the prodigal life, is life without God.
The center of the painting is dominated by the figure of the prodigal himself. His once rich robe is now ragged, tattered, torn, threadbare. His body is bent, sinewy but bent, barely able to support his slouching shoulders or his drooping head. His once youthful face is now weathered, worse for the wear, worn, beaten, bearded beyond his years. His limp hair hangs, like his clothes, like his skin, like his arms, like his eyes, lowered, not just unwilling but unable to look up the lane that his feet feel as if for the first time. His left hand is poised on the post. The gate is gone, the way is clear, no bar, no lock, no barrier. But his pointed fingers pause on the post, he stands flatfooted at the gate, and his gaunt frame freezes at the front door. He hesitates, even now, as he sees through his lowered lashes his running father, running to meet him through the waving wheat, through the bright-scented air, from the welcoming house on the hill.
He does not hesitate because the far country has corrupted his image of his father, his generous, gracious father. It is the image of his father that draws him home. It is the compassionate spirit of his father that accompanies him, like a dove, wherever he roams. The far country has corrupted his image of himself. He has become only what he owns, his worth is only what he’s worth, his personhood is defined by his productivity, meaning is made up of deities he has manufactured. The far country has almost convinced him that he is either a god, creating himself in his own image, or an animal, a pig, intelligent but unclean, part of the herd but hermetically sealed off, stymied, lost, alone. Riojas paints a prodigal son, a prodigal life, in which we squander not only our substance but our selves, selves created by God, created to live in relationship with God. The prodigal represents all of us who need to come to ourselves and reclaim the reality of life in God.
The right side of the painting features the father. What light can Riojas shed on the forgiving father? Some things are obvious. The father lives in the light, but it is not unapproachable light; it is a warm and welcoming light. The father provides out of his abundance, from fields of wheat, their full-grown grain standing ready to be reaped. The father runs, runs, mind you, down the well-paved lane, not hunkered down in that massive mansion on the hill, now a hut on the horizon. And the father has already engaged his servants in a parade of presents, even before the prodigal has returned, even before he has repented.
Other things are not quite so obvious. The white dove shadowing the slumped shoulder of the son, the Spirit of God, suggests that the persistent presence of father has been with him every step, every wingbeat of the way, to the far country, in the far country, returning from the far country. Riojas visually reminds us that God waits, waits patiently for the return of his recalcitrant son; that God welcomes, eagerly, prodigally, extravagantly; that God wings his way, persistently providing his spiritual presence, wherever we may wander; that God runs, recklessly to meet us and greet us, not in his tapestried rooms but on the road, not at home but on our way home.
But where is the elder son in this artistic depiction of the parable of the Prodigal Son? The elder son of the parable appears to be missing in action. Is he back home lounging in the lap of luxury or reveling in the ripe-unto-harvest fields or plowing the seeds of his own self-righteousness? Riojas does not tell us, does not show us.
But there is an elder son, the true elder son, in this painting. He hangs on a cross, in the darkness, on a bare and barren rock, a place of the skull, hanging out over the valley of the shadow of darkness and dirtiness and desolation and destruction and death, yes, even death. Riojas echoes the apostle Paul—“for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”—and brushes in an elder brother, sent at a dear and desperate cost from the ever-present, ever-pained, father of all us prodigals.
We see so much through the eyes of this artist that went only whispered in the words. We see that the far country, our sin, our life on the dark side, is characterized not only by the way we have dingied and dirtied and destroyed and defiled and put to death everything that is living and lovely around us, but even more by the way we have misplaced our faith, our hope, and our trust, misdirected our worship, by worshiping the signs of God in the world around us and in ourselves, the very signs and selves we simultaneously destroy, instead of worshiping only the loving and living God. This is, surprisingly enough, a parable about idolatry.
We see that the younger son, both in the depths of depravity and on the very doorstep of reconciliation, is plagued not so much by a mistaken understanding of God but of himself. Even in the midst of rebellion against God, as we live out our bent lives, we remember God, we miss the benefits of a close relationship with God. It is ourselves we forget, that we are created in God’s image and likeness, that we share God’s nature, that we are meant to live intimately with the living and loving God. This is, surprisingly enough, a parable not just about coming back to God but about coming to our selves.
We see that the father, God, does not dwell in unapproachable light. God is approachable and, more amazing yet, God approaches. God sprints toward the darkness, trailing the light, his love, his good gifts, in his wake, able to wait for and at the same time welcome our return. And the God who waits and runs and welcomes is in fact with us in all our wandering all along the way. This is, surprisingly enough, a parable about the God who does not wait.
And we see that, when we are the elder son, we are often shamefully absent from the celebration, but that there is an elder son hanging in there with all us prodigals, insinuating himself into the silences of our dark lives. It is he, the one who bends over the whole bent world, whose pain marks the pathway from darkness to light. This parable of Jesus is, surprisingly enough, a parable about Jesus.
James Janknegt
The second artistic exegesis of the parable of the prodigal son is also a triptych, this one from 2002 by James Janknegt, another contemporary American painter. On the left, from early in the parable, the younger son sits in the far country. In the center, from the middle of the parable, are the father and the servants, welcoming the younger son home from his urban exile. On the right, the older son sits in a far country of his own making, while the welcome-home cookout goes on in the background. Janknegt entitled his painting, “Two Sons,” recognizing that from beginning to end there are two sons in the story, a fact overlooked by many artists and downplayed by some biblical interpreters. After a careful analysis of this multifaceted artistic representation, I would be tempted to suggest an alternate title— “The Father’s Persistent Presence.”
In the left panel the younger son is already ensconced in the far country. He has already demanded his inheritance and liquidated his assets, already fled to the far country and “squandered his substance.” He has already found himself without resources and without recourse, without finances or friends or family, famished, trapped in a country not only far but beset by famine. Janknegt offers us a younger son already desperate, already despondent. The dejected son sits surrounded by the evidences and effects of life in the far country. The far country is a far city; a red car cruises the streets amid skyscrapers that dominate the urban landscape. A billboard advertises the strip clubs around the corner, the sight of his debauchery or the object of his daydreams. He sits on the steps of the Golden Arches Cafe, his pigpen, dressed in the uniform of his below-poverty-level job. He’s been rooting, like a pig, through a tipped-over garbage can, hoping to ease his hunger on Happy Meal scraps. He ponders his condition, head cocked, chin on hand, eyeing the sign at a bus stop, a way home perhaps. All in all an interesting modern depiction of the plight of the prodigal!
But there looming in the upper right corner is something truly provocative—the head, the face, of his farmer father. Janknegt seems to be suggesting that no matter how far the son fled from his father, no matter how much he disregarded his father, distanced himself from his father’s place and principles, the father was never far from his son. That face highlights what we otherwise might miss in the parable—how much the father is on the mind and lips of the son. “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired hands.”’ And he arose and went to his father.” The son, even at his lowest, even at his “lostest,” was keenly aware of the persistent presence of his father.
In the central panel, the father runs to welcome his son home. The top border depicts the various means of transportation used by the wealthy son for his flight far from his father—a day and a night and another day of jet planes. The bottom border reveals his significantly slower journey home. The jet-setting has definitely come to an
end—buses give way to cars to beat-up pickups to sneakers to bare feet. It is in fact on bare feet that the son walks home from the dazzling city in the desert. He trudges from yellowed grass and cactus to the green fields of a rolling farm. Still the son seems a bit hesitant.
But the father runs with open arms, out onto the open road where he has spied his son approaching. He has already mobilized the farmhands, who follow close behind, one with a blue jacket, just like dad’s, another with a ring, a third with boots. The father, the largest figure in the panel, dominates the center of the parable. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and [he] felt compassion, and [he] ran and [he] embraced him and [he] kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.” It is the father who acts—he catches sight, even though he never lost sight; he is consumed with compassion; he runs, yes, runs; he holds him to his bosom like the baby boy he has always been; he covers him with careless kisses; he calls, for a robe and a ring, for shoes and a celebration. The father who was persistently present even in his absence, is now fully present.
One other troubling image lurks in the central panel. In the upper right corner an ominous, clown-like figure watches the homecoming and reunion. Is it an image of the elder son? Is Janknegt suggesting that the elder son is also persistently present in the story, haunted by his brother’s abandonment and absence, jealous of his brother’s imagined life in the far country, now irritated by and envious of his father’s warm welcome.
In the right panel, the disgruntled older son boycotts the banquet. The celebration is in full swing. Family and friends feast at the table on the green lawn. The band plays in the background. The older son sits on a tree stump, refusing to participate in the spirit of the occasion. He angrily, foolishly, breaks his guitar in half, refusing to share in the music, the food, the joy. A skull reminds us that it is the elder son who is now dead, dead to his father, not the younger son who was dead but is now alive. He has fled to his own far country, squandering his substance with his own brand of prodigality. He speaks to his father with the same disregard and disrespect with which the younger son had acted. “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, came back, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
But there looming in the upper left corner is something truly provocative—the head, the face of his farmer father. No matter how hard the heart of the elder son has become, no matter how much he disregarded and disrespected his father, distanced himself, without moving an inch, from his father’s place and principles, the father was never far from this son either. Janknegt helps us see that the father looks on his older son’s anger with the same sad love and mercy as he did on the younger son in the left panel. The words he spoke to the older son echo from earlier in the parable—“Son (older son, younger son, every son, every son and daughter), you are always with me (because I am always with you, far country or near), and all that is mine is yours (all you demand, all you don’t, all you spend, all you save, all you want or wish or waste). It was fitting to celebrate and be glad (for him, for me, for you, for all of us), for this your brother (yes, your brother, if my son then your brother), was dead (like you) and is alive; he was lost (like you), and is found.’” The older son—even at his haughtiest—must be keenly aware of the persistent presence of his father.
Reading the parable through the eyes of an artist illuminates some aspects of its meaning even more vividly than solely reading the text. The behavior of younger, prodigal sons—squandered opportunities, self-serving, self-gratifying, sinful relationships—matters, but it is not the main point of the parable. The behavior of older, obedient sons—fulfilled opportunities, services rendered, other-oriented, sacrificial, healthy and healing relationships—matters, but it is also not the main point. The message of the painting and of the parable is the persistently present father, the father who watches over his sons and daughters no matter how un-son-like, how un-daughter-like they are, the father who can see us when we think we’re out of sight, the father who peers into whatever sad situation we find ourselves, not pruriently but persistently, not condemningly but compassionately, the father who can see us when we are right under his nose, thinking we know everything, know best, about our younger siblings, our sinner siblings, about God, our too-gracious, too-merciful, too-forgiving God, about our selves, our sinful, self-righteous selves. He is the father who always welcomes us home, who always celebrates our presence, and he is the father whose persistent presence we must always celebrate.
Summary
I have spent most of my academic career studying the Greek text of the New Testament, its language and its structure. I have had the joy of gleaning insight after insight into the meaning of the writings of the New Testament from that linguistic and literary study. And I have benefited professionally and personally from the writings of others from across the centuries and from around the world who have exegeted and interpreted and applied those writings in journals, books, and sermons. But now I must testify to the storehouse of insight that yet awaits the student of the Bible who is willing to see what others have seen in their artistic encounters with those same texts. I understand the nature of the prodigal’s life in the far country and the possibilities for reconciliation with the older brother better for having heard and seen the provocative opera by Benjamin Britten. I am forced to consider the pain of the prodigal’s return and the pain of the father’s forgiveness more deeply when I view George Balanchine’s choreographic interpretation. It is a novel, not a commentary, Marilynne Robinson’s Home, which helps me see the parable through the eyes of a sympathetic “older brother.” Christina Rossetti’s poetry lets me see the light in the father’s window immediately and always burning. A River Runs Through It, one of modern cinema’s most beautiful and powerful productions, forces me to understand how Jesus’ ancient parable gets lived out in our everyday lives over and over.
The art of biblical interpretation—the traditional practices of exegesis and hermeneutics and homiletics—must be supplemented by the arts. Anyone who wishes to encounter Jesus on any terms and from any perspective must recognize that we will see Jesus more clearly if we use more than one lens. The academic lens of linguistic, literary, sociological, and theological analysis serves as a useful magnifying glass in our attempts to understand the Teacher and his teachings. But when the additional lens of artistic interpretation is added, we see Jesus not only through the opaque pages of sermon manuscripts and commentaries but also through canvas and choreography, through musical score and cinematic image, through poetic words and dramatic actions. When the gospel is refracted through the whole range of human interpretation, we come closer to achieving that heart’s desire which we share in those ancient inquirers—“We would see Jesus.”
[1] Let me suggest that at any mention of a specific painting the reader feel free to pause and search the internet using the artist’s name and the phrase “prodigal son.”
