I am incredibly thankful for her generosity with the time and energy she invested into Joey and me. We only spent about a week with Aunt Sybil, but her contagious spirit of adventure, her firm guidance, and her inspirational promptings to explore certainly laid the foundation for our travels in the subsequent weeks and months ahead. ​She prompted and prodded Joey and me to “get off our duffs” and explore the world around us. She helped us sort out how to travel... she showed us what to look for, what we shouldn’t miss, what we can overlook, and how to get there. In short, she taught us how to be true world travellers.

In Joseph Cambell’s theory of the hero’s journey, he includes an archetypal character who prepares and prompts the hero for the adventure ahead. Neither Joey nor I were “heroes,” but we were setting out on an adventurous journey. In famous myths and movies based on the hero’s journey, wise mentors like Merlin, Gandalf, Dumbledore, and Obi-Wan Kenobi fill the “prompting and prodding” role. In many ways, Aunt Sybil was my Gandalf-like guide, the grande dame of exciting exploits. Besides being a generous host (who cooked up splendid British fare), she nudged Joey and me across “the threshold,” and helped us set out on the host of adventures that lay ahead.  ​

​After graduating high school, spending the summer at Camp Oneida, and just about to turn 19, I flew to Great Britain to begin a three-month trip. With my school chum, Joey, we explored twelve European countries on foot, by bus, train, and boat. This coming Fall will mark the 30th anniversary of that backpacking tour. 

Over the next month or so, I hope to write a blog series highlighting my reflections on my time visiting family, meeting new friends, and seeing the sights. 

For this first post, I want to reflect on the lasting “aesthetic impact” of a few key works of art I encountered on my trip to the Old Counrty. Europe is chock-full of astonishing art and architecture. I saw a lot of art and architecture, from Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” to the Colosseum in Rome. I would like to highlight here three specific encounters that left an indelible mark in my heart and mind. 

The first encounter that rocked my world happened in the relatively remote and somewhat industrial town of Glasgow, Scotland. At Kelvingrove Art Gallery, I saw a Rembrandt painting in person for the first time. The painting was “A Man in Armour” (1655). I recall entering the room and immediately, my eyes were drawn to the painting. The painting stood out from all the surrounding paintings. I was entranced by this portrait of a young man burdened with heavy armour and weapons and preoccupied with deep thoughts, possibly of the battles he must soon face. Rembrandt's use of light and shadow (which I did not understand then) completely captivated me. I stared at it. This may have been my first real aesthetic experience with a work of art. I have never forgotten that moment. ​

​Later on in the trip, we saw a concert in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The historic concert hall––The Concertgebouw––is renowned for its beauty and acoustics. On a Sunday evening in late October, we sat with hundreds of other guests in plush chairs and gazed up at the 17-meter-high ornate ceiling. That evening I heard my first concerto in person. I saw the conductor directing the musicians, I heard the harmonizing of so many complementary instruments, and I felt the music brush against my skin and pierce my soul. I had never "felt" music before. The pieces we heard weren’t particularly remarkable–Johannes Brahms’ “Piano Concerto No. 2, op. 83” and Arnold Schönberg’s “Violin Concerto, op. 36.” What resonated with me was seeing, feeling, and hearing music performed live in a superbly designed acoustic space. I had been to concerts with synthesized instruments, electirc guitars, and amplified music... but this was incarnated beauty, beauty I could touch. This was truly electric. 

​What Michelangelo achieved with this masterpiece is unparalleled. La Pietà simultaneously conveys natural and realistic beauty, the idealism of classical beauty, and profound theological beauty. I saw a mother and son, I saw a god-like hero broken and in seeming defeat, and I saw the Virgin Mary with the Son of God. I saw the paradox of the crucifixion in that work––profound love and deep sadness, life and death, victory and defeat––all commingling in the tender maternal moment captured with hammer and chisel. I saw artistry that I had never seen before––living marble––breathing, feeling, weeping stone. This was Mary, who pondered in her heart the mysteries of her son, who Simeon told that her child was “appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:19, 34-35). This was Jesus, God in the flesh.

All of this didn’t hit me at once as a 19-year-old kid wandering around the cobblestone streets of Europe. Thirty years of reflection and contemplation have given me much time to really comprehend what happened to me during these encounters with real art in the real world. Since then, I have learned a lot more about art. I have seen more art, and I have been back a few times to see them again. I spent ten years writing about faith and art, and I wrote a book on the subject. But with these three encounters, a seed was planted, and a fire was kindled. It was an encounter with truth, beauty, and goodness. Like Shakespeare’s Romeo, as he gazed upon the beautiful Juliet for the first time, I, too, declared, “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”