Art, Beauty, God and Life

What art can teach us about God and life:

I make no claims to being an artist nor an expert in art. Yet like so many people, I do greatly appreciate art and would like to know more about it. Over the years I have penned various articles on the subject. Just yesterday I wrote a piece which discussed, among other things, the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In it I discussed some works by Rembrandt and Vermeer: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/02/02/the-rijksmuseum-religion-and-righteousness/

And four years ago I put together a bibliography on a theology of the arts, listing some 40 titles: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2022/07/21/christianity-and-a-theology-of-the-arts-recommended-reading/

Here I want to just discuss two books, penned by the same author: Russ Ramsey, a pastor who understands and appreciates art, and how it connects with our Christian faith. They are:

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. Zondervan, 2022.

Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive. Zondervan, 2024.

I actually spoke to both these volumes last year: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/07/04/art-beauty-god-and-wonder/

In that piece I focused especially on Rembrandt, and on his Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem. But given what great volumes these are, here I want to briefly discuss each book a bit further and offer a few more quotes as well.

Rembrandt Is in the Wind

In his 2022 volume, Ramsey has an Epilogue with the title, “A World Short on Masters”. He asks us what our own particular gifting or craft is. He urges us to contribute beauty to this world, and he looks at the life of Rembrandt. He writes:

Rembrandt knew he was a great artist, but he also knew he wasn’t limitless. He wrestled with his inability to satisfy what other people wanted him to be, if you can imagine. He said once, “I can’t paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too. Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can’t do it. I just can’t do it!” The Dutch master was astonishingly gifted, but when he tried to train his hands to create another person’s vision, he just couldn’t do it. Neither can I. Neither can you.

 

All Rembrandt could do was paint and paint and paint. He couldn’t be a different painter. He could only be Rembrandt. And that is what he sought to master: how to be Rembrandt…. (p. 209)

He concludes:

Mastery doesn’t just produce stories. It considers how to tell them and occasionally even provides new language when there are no words. The canvases Rembrandt left us do so much more than illustrate scenes from the Bible. They are like the picture of the Dawn Treader that sucked the Pevensies and Eustace into an adventure whose goal was to reach the end of everything in the hopes that Aslan would be all that remained.

 

What are you mastering? What are you practicing in order to make clear what you don’t yet know? If you’re anything like me, I’m sure you reach points where you begin to wonder if it might just be easier to plateau. And if not plateau, then quit altogether.

 

Don’t. Please. This world is short on masters, and consequently, it’s a world short on joy too. (p. 210)

Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart

In the final chapter of his 2024 book, Ramsey says this:

The Lord has no ordinary words for us. They are all gilded in beauty and glory. Why? Because even in our darkest moments, he created us to lean into who he is: beautiful and glorious. So Rembrandt’s Jeremiah, struck with the grief of Jerusalem’s destruction, leans his weight on a book filled with poems about the mercies of the Lord, how they are new every morning, and how hope threads through until the end. (p. 185)

He goes on to write:

We live in a world alive with beauty, but it is filled with suffering too. Some of the beauty is hidden in the pain we come to know in this life. It resides in the tears of loss, the unfinished business of love, the affection that remains for those who leave too soon, and the ebb and flow of success and failure. It’s in the sacrifices we make to care for a newborn, nurture a marriage, parent a young adult, and maintain a household. It’s in the stories Rockwell told of a generation reticent to boast in their own heroism at war. It’s in the way Rembrandt held his granddaughter at her baptism—his last connection to his first love. It’s in the secrets Turner kept in his sketchbooks—his inner life concealed from the rest of the world. It’s in sublime wilderness the Hudson River School painters attempted to warn us about. It’s in Vincent’s desire to be accepted by his friend Rachel as he gave her a part of himself. It’s in Jimmy’s fading vision that makes him see this world in a new way.

 

Adjusting to the limits of our mortality is sobering, humbling, and sorrowful, but it’s also inevitable. Everyone I’ve ever watched grow old has, at some point, had to surrender what once came naturally. They’ve had to lay things down and die before they die. Think about the physiology of growing old. If the Lord grants us many years, the way to eternal glory will include the dimming of our vision, the slowing of our bodies, the dulling of our minds, and the diminishing of our appetites. It’s a path that requires us to loosen our grip on this world, preparing us to leave it before we leave it.

 

Is this not mercy?

 

Is there not an art to this? (pp. 186-187)

If you do not have these two volumes, I urge you to get them. And next time you have a chance, why not visit an art museum?

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