Art Reflection: “Easter Mystery”

Easter Mystery by Maurice Denis

On Easter Sunday, our conversation was around the trajectory of the resurrection in all of creation.  The painting, housed at the Art Institute of Chicago, brings about two scenes.  The forefront a picture of the resurrection.  The background, more prominent with detail and action, we see followers partaking in the Eucharist.

Denis himself, however, was an ardent Catholic for whom the process of decorative abstraction was redolent of spiritual purification. Believing art to be "the sanctification of nature," he sought to emulate the fifteenth-century Italian master Fra Angelico, using the vocabulary of avant-garde painting to devise modern "icons."

a few words about the background of the painting:

...A disembodied hand of God bearing the Eucharist emerges from a screen of trees, beyond which mysterious, white-robed figures advance across a lawn in a procession evocative of a First Communion ceremony. All of nature seems to hum with imminent rebirth.

For me, this painting speaks volumes about the reality of the resurrection being found in our living.  Isn't the resurrection most evident when the spirit of God is shaping our lives?

What do you see?