I didn’t intend this when making them, but I now think of these two paintings as paired, showing two basic orientations: a looking down into the hells below us and a looking up into the heavens above. The first is the look of sorrow—not only anxiety, but anxiety taken prayerfully to heart—and the other is the look of hope. The first is the look of the old, the aged; the last, the look of the young and the young-at-heart.
And notice: although both show us Mary at night. the sorrowing image is painted in bright colors, while the hopeful image is painted in dark—a sign that darkness is not always gloom (I’ll have more to say on that here very soon).
Mary is Our Lady of Darkness. Like a new Rachel, she sees into the darkness of death always already enshrouding her and her boy. And yet, like a new Abraham, she also sees into the darkness of life, recognizing the bright, moving signs of God’s incredible future. Taken together, these paintings are a reminder that whatever we are facing, we are seen. And that what we are seeing has already been seen—and seen to.