Pastourelle
By Bobby Neal Winters
Those who follow this space know that the Bible is very important to me. I am not a fundamentalist by any measure, though I grew up that way, but I’ve hung with the Bible through periods of change in my life. These changes included higher education, getting to know people of other religions and of no religion, getting to know people who were respectful of my point of view and people who were dismissive.
I’ve clung to the Bible; I’ve wrestled with it; I’ve never let it go. As I’ve grown older this relationship has stabilized. As I’ve come to ideas I believe to be true, I’ve clung to them. I’ve used them to build an understanding, to create a picture. It’s gotten to a point where I think it has settled down to something close to complete, so I’d like to share it with you.
Last Friday, as I write this, I visited the Philbrook Museum down in Tulsa. If you’ve not been I suggest you go. I suggest you kind of dress up. I don’t mean that you have to wear a coat and tie or your Sunday best, but if you wear the clothes you mow the lawn in or do your wood turning in, you are going to feel uncomfortable.
There were people there who were dressed that way, but I got the impression they were actual artists. You don’t want folks to think that about you unless it's the truth.
The Philbrook is an art museum. It goes back to the late 1930’s and the early 1940’s. To make a long story short, it was built by Oklahoma oil money. This means something to me. My grandfather, my father, and my uncles worked in the Oklahoma oil fields. I don’t think any of them ever worked for the Phillips Oil Company, but they were out there at that time. It’s not too much of a stretch to think that some of the money generated by their labor would’ve ended up there.
I found myself wondering what they would’ve made of it. In particular, I found myself wondering what Dad would’ve made of it. Dad didn’t finish high school. He tried, but the fact that he was in fact working in the oil field during a time when he was of high school age created a barrier that he didn’t overcome. This didn’t create any resentment toward education or art on his part, but, rather, an appreciation of it.
As I was there in the museum, which is housed in the Phillips mansion, and as I wandered its grounds, I thought of Dad and what he would’ve made of it. I believe he would’ve thought they put their money to good use there. They bought beautiful things, gathered them together in a beautiful place, and then made them available for everyone to see.
It’s nicely curated, and related pieces are together so that you can compare and contrast the perspectives of the various artists.
You have to pay to get in, but it’s not priced so as to keep anybody out.
Here’s the thing about an art museum. It’s got art in it. By art, I don’t mean just pretty pictures. Beauty is a basic part of it, but art has to have levels with it. What I mean is that, if you bring more in with you, then you will get more out of it.
As I said, Dad had very little formal education. He did read a good bit, so there was some self-education, but he had lived abroad in the world and had lots of knowledge about people. He could’ve looked at the picture of a beautiful woman and appreciated that, but he could’ve also seen deeper than just the surface.
There is a picture called “The Shepherdess” (Pastourelle) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau that I particularly like that I think he would like as well.
Art reveals the subject to the viewer, but it reveals the viewer to himself, too.
There is very little about the Philbrook to criticise, but what little there is would be among some of the modern pieces. There were one or two pieces I looked at and thought that they weren’t going to age too well.
Time will deal with those.
At this point, the reader might very well be asking himself, what does this have to do with the Bible.
The Bible is like a museum, but the very best museum. The pieces were brought together with a purpose. It’s curated. And there aren’t any of those silly modern pieces to distract from the beauty of the masterworks.
The Bible not only reveals the subject to the reader, but the reader to himself.
Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.
