Looking within.THE CAPACITY FOR SILENCE--a deep, creative awareness of one's inner truth--is what distinguishes us as human. All of us, however ordinary or flawed, have at heart a seemingly boundless longing for fulfillment, and it is their consciousness of this that makes Rembrandt's portraits so beautiful. The Woman with a Pink is lost in the depths of her private reflections. Her dark background is symbolically unimportant, lending greater expression to the soft brightness that plays upon her face. Visibly silent, she is explicitly encountering the mystery of being human. She does not contemplate the carnation (the "pink"), usually an emblem of love, but looks within, in silence, quiet and engrossed en·gross tr.v. en·grossed, en·gross·ing, en·gross·es 1. To occupy exclusively; absorb: A great novel engrosses the reader. See Synonyms at monopolize. 2. . By SISTER WENDY BECKETT of Norfolk, England, well-known for her BBC BBC in full British Broadcasting Corp. Publicly financed broadcasting system in Britain. A private company at its founding in 1922, it was replaced by a public corporation under royal charter in 1927. and PBS PBS in full Public Broadcasting Service Private, nonprofit U.S. corporation of public television stations. PBS provides its member stations, which are supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by commercials, with educational, cultural, television art series and her popular art books. Reprinted with permission from: Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations (DK Publishing, 1998; 888-342-5357). Painting: Woman with a Pink, by Rembrandt van Rijn Rembrandt (Harmenszoon) van Rijn (born July 15, 1606, Leiden, Neth.—died Oct. 4, 1669, Amsterdam) Dutch painter and etcher. As a young man, he was apprenticed to masters in Leiden and in Amsterdam. (1665-9, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of ). |
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