A Month of Miracles Part 10 - Jesus Heals Two Blind Men

Title: The Healing of the Blind Men
Artist: Ilyās Bāsim Khūrī Bazzī Rāhib
Medium: Illuminated manuscript
Size: 11 x 16 cm   
Date: 1684
Location: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

Matthew 9:27-31 - As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They replied, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.

The blind men's initial act of faith is approaching Jesus with a plea for mercy, recognizing that they are dependent on his kindness rather than on any merit of their own. Their initial faith also includes recognition of Jesus' identity. Here two blind beggars confess Jesus' messianic identity (Son of David) before Peter does! Yet despite their initial acts of faith, Jesus forces them to clarify that they acknowledge his ability to heal this otherwise irreversible disability. Jesus refuses to heal without faith; he is not a magician, but one who seeks to glorify his Father.

This illuminated and illustrated Arabic manuscript of the Gospels by Matthew (Mattá), Mark (Marquṣ), Luke (Lūqā), and John (Yūḥannā) was copied in Egypt by Ilyās Bāsim Khūrī Bazzī Rāhib, who was most likely a Coptic monk, in 1684. The text is written in naskh in black ink with rubrics in red. The decoration is comprised of illuminated headpieces, numerous floral paintings, and approximately fifty illustrations. It is bound together in brown goatskin with blind-tooled central oval medallion, pendants, and corner pieces contemporary with the manuscript.

The Flight into Egypt

Title: The Flight into Egypt
Artist: George Hitchcock
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 113 x 166 cm
Date: 1892
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Matthew 2:14-15: Joseph got up. During the night, he left for Egypt with the child and his mother Mary. They stayed there until King Herod died. So the words the Lord had spoken through the prophet came true. He had said, "I chose to bring my son out of Egypt."

By quoting the beginning of Hosea's prophecy, Matthew declares that Jesus' sojourn in Egypt fulfills the prophecy. Matthew evokes the passage as a whole and shows how Jesus is the forerunner of the new exodus, the time of ultimate salvation. Matthew uses God's pattern in history to remind us that our call and destiny must define us. We are the people of the new exodus, the people of God's kingdom. Matthew's quotation from Hosea also reminds us that Jesus identifies with his people's heritage. Jesus appears as the promised one greater than Moses and the heir of God's call to Israel. As God protected Moses when Pharaoh killed the male Israelite children, so God protects Jesus.

In this depiction Hitchcock secularized the subject, placing the biblical figures in the landscape of Holland, where he lived for some time. This prompted a critic of the day to write: “It is a very gracious arrangement of color, but entirely without value as a sacred picture.” However, such a view fails to take into account earlier iconography of this event. The background to these scenes usually included a number of apocryphal miracles, such as blooming flora, and gave an opportunity for the emerging genre of landscape painting. During the 16th century, as interest in landscape painting grew, the subject became a popular one for paintings, often with the figures small in a large landscape. The subject was especially popular with German Romantic painters, and later in the 19th century was one of a number of New Testament subjects which lent themselves to Orientalist treatment.

George Hitchcock (1850–1913), was an American artist born in Providence, Rhode Island. He studied law at Harvard and practiced at the bar until age twenty-nine, when he turned to art. In 1879 he worked at the Académie Julian in Paris and the next year established a studio in Holland where he remained for the rest of his life. He first established his reputation as a painter of large-scale religious paintings in which biblical subjects are garbed in contemporary peasant dress. He later turned from these loosely brushed works in silvery gray light to more brilliantly colorful, sunlit paintings of Dutch tulip fields and peasant women in colorful local dress. Though less well known today, during his life he was regarded in Europe and America as one of the best painters of his period.

The Flight into Egypt

Title: The Flight into Egypt

Artist: James B. Janknegt

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 51 x 40 cm

Date: 2008

Location: Private collection.

Matthew 2:14-15 chronicles that after waking from his dream, Joseph got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

Matthew declares that Jesus' sojourn in Egypt fulfills Hosea's prophecy. By quoting the beginning of the passage, Matthew evokes the passage as a whole and shows how Jesus is the forerunner of the new exodus, the time of ultimate salvation. Matthew uses God's pattern in history to remind us that our call and destiny must define us. We are the people of the new exodus, the people of God's kingdom. Matthew's quotation from Hosea also reminds us that Jesus identifies with his people's heritage. Jesus appears as the promised one greater than Moses and the heir of God's call to Israel. As God protected Moses when Pharaoh killed the male Israelite children, so God protects Jesus.

James B. Janknegt was born in Austin, Texas. He attended art school at the University of Texas in Austin and graduated with a BFA in 1978. He left Texas and moved to Iowa City to attend graduate school where he worked with Mauricio Lasansky and Joe Patrick among others. Jim has painted in his off hours while working full time in other capacities, and is currently the building manager for the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. His work can be viewed at http://janknegt.eccwireless.com/

Joseph’s Dream

Title: Joseph’s Dream

Artist: Gaetano Gandolfi

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 95 x 76 cm

Date: c. 1790

Location: Private collection.

In Matthew 2:13 it is written that sometime after the magi had departed by their surreptitious route, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."

Jesus' miraculous escape here should not lead us to overlook the nature of his deliverance (compare, for example, 1 Kings 17:2-6). Jesus and his family survived, but they survived as refugees, abandoning any livelihood Joseph may have had at home as they were undoubtedly traveling lightly. Although travel within Egypt was may have been easy for visitors with means, many Judeans had traditionally regarded refuge in Egypt as a last resort.

Gaetano Gandolfi (August 31, 1734 – June 20, 1802) was a successful artist active in Bologna, whose oeuvre includes about 220 paintings, terracotta sculptures, etchings and a huge number of drawings. From its beginnings, Gaetano's art was brilliant and individual. He had a distinguished academic career and between 1751 and 1756 won two medals for sculpture and four for drawing. In later years, he became increasingly neo-classical. Both stylistically and thematically he seems to have been well aware of Giaquinto as well as artistic currents in France in the 1760s. Gaetano died playing bowls in the church field of S. Egidio, probably of a heart attack, although there is an alternative tradition that he was knocked on the head by a ball.

Rest on the Flight to Egypt

Title: Rest on the Flight to Egypt
Artist: Nicholas Mynheer
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 20 x 50 cm
Date: 2003
Location: The Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art, UK.

Mynheer's painting in the Methodist collection depicts the traditional scene of the Holy family taking rest in the desert on their way to Egypt fleeing from the wrath of Herod (Matthew 2:13-15). After the birth of Jesus, the Magi from the east had inadvertently alerted Herod to the presence of the Christ in their midst. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and alerted him to Herod’s murderous scheme: "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” Immediately Joseph gathered Mary and Jesus and left for Egypt.

With the threat receding, Mary and Joseph are able to play with the baby Jesus. The Judean Desert blooms with wild flowers for about two weeks every spring so the artist has depicted the desert it flowering in response to the presence of The Lord, echoing the words of The Benedicite "O All ye works of the Lord: praise him, and magnify him forever." Even the tree under which they are seen resting has come into fruit; for Nature itself responds to God, praising in its own way.

Nicholas Mynheer (b.1958) is a native of Oxfordshire, England. He is a contemporary artist whose principal themes are biblical, not only does Mynheer work in oil but also in glass and stone. For twenty years Nicholas has been painting and sculpting chiefly around Biblical themes for churches and religious institutions. His artworks are in many churches of all traditions throughout Britain and beyond. Mynheer's work is highly stylized, rather like medieval images in stained glass, sometimes his figures have an almost comic book cartoon like quality with a strong expressionistic force. His webiste is http://www.methodist.org.uk/static/artcollection/index.htm