Running to, from...Desperately seeking

"So, what do you see...?" A common question that was first put to us by our professor, who taught us the essentials of what in the analysis of personality attributes, is referred to as "Projectives" -- the study of someone's thoughts, feelings, and emotions by having them 'project' them onto an object. In our training, most often a picture...or at least one which sort of resembled one as in the scribblings ("ink blots") of one Hermann Rorschach. With many other iterations and illustrations, often presented to an unsuspecting individual, the accumulation of images and impressions, which may make an impression on the clinician in question, regarding some of the "underlying" feelings, thoughts...which may in turn give them but a glimpse into...their "Minds" Which brings us to this very morning, a moment in time, when we are all "caught off guard"...

"The Disciples Running..." A shortened version of the whole title of the famous "most famous of his paintings and the most famous one depicting the essence of Easter" wrote one reviewer I reviewed...of Rorschach's compatriot, Eugene Burnand, born in 1850, who initially studied architecture, which he abandoned to study, pursue painting, one of which became strongly aligned not only with his name ("his finest, easily his best..." according to another reviewer), but also with this very morning and a place we can all relate to ("all people, regardless of their religious orientation, can immediately identify with the emotions depicted... the body language...through the movement and immediacy of the scene...the preceding moments with Mary Magdalene are palpable...you can almost hear her voice while she is not actually featured in the picture...the sun beaming down between the scattered clouds and yellow sky...").  Or, stating in a little briefer, through the eyes and words of yet another reviewer, "a startling vision of personal revelation..." All this, in one painting? I guess it depends in part on...

"The eyes of the beholder" Which, for us psychologists, may in turn give us but a glimpse into...but what we were eventually taught, was fraught with peril, if used in isolation of other information and methods on analyzing a person's true inner processes, as it ("projective techniques") had too much room for error, part of which was found in ourselves, the ones interpreting what you are seeing, and saying to us about what you saw...

"Just what did you expect?!" A question often posed as more of a statement, when the person in your presence is astonished by something that you, yourself, find surprising, given what you already know...a bit satirical response by someone being shown the inkblots..."you're the one showing me the dirty pictures; I'm just telling you what's obvious..." A response and lessons about the limits of gaining understanding about what a beholder beholds, calling us clinicians to be humble about what we truly know about their true selves...And a quote that this particular morning I associate with the scene in question, one that I can imagine M.M. posing to Peter, John..."I already told you it was empty...He told us how it would come to pass..." 

"Food for thought" A common reference for something that warrants serious consideration, even a second look..."mental nourishment" -- which is apparently, in my own interpretation of what the artist was trying to evoke,..."in an era in which revival for spiritual hunger was fighting against the push of emerging aesthetic philosophies" (sounds a bit like "Contemporary", eh?) 

"The Disciples Peter and John running to the sepulcher on the morning of the Resurrection" 

Artist: Eugene Burnand, 1898

Style: Realism

Genre: Religious Painting

"So, what's your take, on this...?" 

Happy Easter, 2023