Another wave

Rev Doug continues:

Many of us are watching more television during the lockdown, and we just came across a programme on BBC i-player (How Art Began - highly recommended!) in which the artist Antony Gormley seeks out the earliest human art on the planet. Deep inside French and Spanish caves he finds ancient paintings of animals, beautifully rendered, sometimes in hunting scenes but often simply as images of beauty. It really makes him, and perhaps us, think about our human place on this planet – and in time and eternity.

Among the images there are handprints, much larger in scale, of a hand waving. It seems likely this is the artist’s hand, and it is done as with a stencil, by placing the hand on the wall and blowing the primitive - and very lasting - paint onto the hand and wall. It is as if the artist is waving hello down the centuries.

This has been thought to be some of the earliest human art, but Gormley moves to South-East Asia where, at 60,000 years old, there are similar marks and drawings which are twice the age of the European paintings. How amazing and moving that the human greeting is there from such a long time past. It evoked in us a sense of wonder that our ancestors are “waving at us”, and that they obviously felt a need to express themselves in this way at such an early stage in human history. That sense of wonder is important in our spiritual understanding of people and of our world

Antony Gormley, who is not a man of religious faith, found the ancient expressions of human identity almost sacred. The wave suggests a long-term continuity and connectedness. The need to express oneself artistically speaks of a desire for beauty and establishing one’s identity. For us today, it can be like the psalmist saying “I will lift up my eyes to the hills” to seek a higher power, and a clearer meaning. Life feels fragile at the moment, but the human race has come through so much over the millennia. Looking forward and looking up to our Creator will hopefully bring our world community closer together. For those who have waved at each other are brought closer, and feeling our humanity and mortality can lead us to know our need of God so that we can say, humbly looking up, “My help comes from the Lord of heaven and earth” (Ps. 121).