Drawing and spirtuality

A study from The Incredulity of Thomas by Peter Paul Rubens. In my journalling I became fascinated by hands and their ability to express feelings, emotions and sentiments. The earliest influence was Henri Nouwen's With Open Hands, but later the works of Van Gogh from his Brabant period. This was a time in the Borinage where he found himself with the poor.

Van Gogh wrote "And in my picture I want to say something consoling, as music does. I want to paint men and women with a touch of the eternal, whose symbol was once the halo, which we try to convey by the very radiance and vibrancy of our coloring . . . . Ah, portraiture, portraiture, with the mind, the soul of the model --that is what really come, it seems to me. (September 3, 1888)

As I draw hands and contemplate the original or the drawn that I find within myself echoes and resonances, the possibilities of the creator.