I imagine these girls are two of the artist's daughters. They appear to be at home, wearing aprons, seated and standing at a table that doubles as a desk. There are a couple of books and some papers piled up. The standing girl is leaning on her right forearm — emotionally leaning in to what her seated sister is sharing. I like the sweet detail of her left hand tucked into the apron tie.
Both girls are old enough to be readers, but the painting's title tell us it's a picture book they're enjoying. Do you remember your first books? They were most likely picture books with minimal text. I am thinking of the 1950's Golden Book series I grew up with: Farmyard Friends, The Wonder of Nature, A Golden Book of Prayers for Children and My Little Golden Book About God. Can you imagine that — books about God for children, for sale in a supermarket?! These books were more about the pictures than the simple text.
I don't remember the verbal instruction of the 2nd grade nun who prepared us for First Communion, but I remember well every picture she showed us — the great oil cloth images she flipped on an easel and the picture on the cover of my boyhood catechism — Jesus, seated under a wide-armed tree with children gathered around him. And the gospel scene paintings in my father's grown-up missal: The Nativity, the Baptism of Jesus, his healing the blind man, sitting with the woman at the well, Jesus on the cross, Jesus leaving the Easter morning tomb, Jesus ascending.
In the Incarnation, God has a human face. This means God has become picture-able. And in his teaching Jesus continually creates pictures for our imagination: a woman adding yeast to bread-flour, a man searching for a lost sheep, a field filled with wild flowers, a father whose son leaves home, a farmer who goes out to sow seed in his field...
And Jesus teaches us (through mental pictures) that in order to have a life with God, we need to look deeply at the faces of those around us and love them: a leprous man, a mourning mother, a blind man, a hemorrhaging woman, the little children and their mothers. a woman bent over, a crazed man who's hurting himself...
Oh, Jesus,
who teaches us to be with God
through your gospel scenes —
pictures for heart and mind,
may we learn from you.
