There is painting of the American artist Frederic Edwin Church, titled 'The Heart of the Andes' that I had set as my laptop desktop background image for a couple of years now.
Initially I thought the painting was 'The Church in the Andes'... I had mixed up the name of the artist and the art piece itself. Today while reading something more about the same painting I learnt that it was a tribute to the philosopher naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. So basically it is a piece of art depicting nature. The title given to the painting also is this justified - nature being the most prestigious element of South America.
Nonetheless, I found asking myself, what is the cross doing in that painting? More specifically, what is the cross doing in the HEART of the Andes? One could brush aside this question attributing the cross in the painting to the artist's colonial and Catholic affiliation. Perhaps there is an element of truth there. But why is it there at all? That too in that size. The cross isn't central. Neither large nor immediately evident. It is part of the whole natural landscape. But it is there!
I interpret it as God being part of one's heart. Not overriding or displacing everything else, but an integral element. Greater still is the artist's depiction of the people in the painting: near the cross. Not bathing, not working in the field, not elsewhere.
In a way the painting is, for me, a microcosmic depiction of the human being: the human as one tiny part of nature and reality; and at the same time a macrocosmic aspect: God at the heart of all reality.
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