| This is the image that came to mind when I first contemplated what the Blessed Beauty described in this passage about the relentless suffering that accompanied His every breath. He asked us to ponder it in our hearts, that every morning He arose, He discovered the hosts of countless afflictions massed behind His door; and every night when He lay down, lo! His heart was torn with agony at what it had suffered from the fiendish cruelty of its foes. This first person account is intimate, personal. In the painting, the composition is meant to place the viewer inside that very room, peeking out onto that stormy, treacherous, endless nightmare that the Blessed Beauty has described. What awaits Him each day beyond that door is “an army of unforeseen calamities”, like a battlefield, strewn with the remnants of “legions of agonizing sorrows” that have bombarded His door overnight. The lifeless landscape could be dawn or dusk. It is meant to show that the Blessed Beauty was at all times in this state of anguish. It is a dark empty space which the viewer fills in with the stories from the life of Bahá’u’lláh that they might recall. The warm colours of the wood door seem to come closer, set against the dark purples in the scene beyond the door that recede. It is meant to feel uncertain, uncomfortable, claustrophobic even, to be inside, and to not know what lies beyond that room. This painting makes me think of how the believers longed to be imprisoned with Bahá’u’lláh, preferring to share in His sorrows than to be parted from their Beloved. Many times I considered adding arrows attacking this door, or painting it the well-known blue that we associate with the Holy Places in which He lived. But I couldn’t do it. It seemed too painful an image to present. Another element of this painting is the indication of a dawn. In the end, the angles in the door point the viewer to that horizon line, in order that they might reflect on how the life of every Manifestation of God is characterized by both His suffering and His influence; and to think of how each one has a part to play in honouring His sacrifice and bringing His teachings to light. Through this project I realized that I do not know very much about the suffering of Bahá’u’lláh. And I decided to go back and learn more about His life, and I have begun to think about how to capture that reflection in another painting, which will look like layers and layers of rock but will together tell a story of His constant suffering, each layer representing in some way a trial He endured. |