Beauty in the Light

In a moment of interesting serendipity, a post in the Utata group, a flickr group that I am a member of, directed me to a section from a book by C.S. Lewis (whose book, Miracles, I am currently reading) called The Great Divorce.

In this passage, a painter has found himself in Heaven, and confronted by its great beauty is wishing he could paint it:


'...I should like to paint this.'

'I shouldn't bother about that just at present if I were you.'

'Look here; isn't one going to be allowed to go on painting?'

'Looking comes first.'

'But I've had my look. I've seen just what I want to do. God!--I wish I'd thought of bringing my things with me!'

The Spirit shook his head, scattering light from his hair as he did so. 'That sort of thing's no good here,' he said.

'What do you mean?' said the Ghost.

'When you painted on earth--at least in your earlier days--it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape.The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too. But here you are having the thing itself. It is from here that the messages came. There is no good telling us about this country, for we see it already. In fact we see it better than you do.'

...

'Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you'll never learn to see the country.'

'But that's just how a real artist is interested in the country.'

'No. You're forgetting,' said the Spirit. 'That was not how you began. Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.'


What a poignant reminder that the beauty we see around us is just a fragment of what there really is... and that it is merely a reflection of a greater beauty. Now I love photography and I see beautiful things all around me (and rarely capture a portion of that in my photos) ... so I can relate to, and understand this passage so well!