onlyontuesday
  • Blog
  • About
  • Quotes
  • Nature
  • Destinations
  • Subscribe

A masterpiece of nature

9/12/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Nature paints a masterpiece as fine as anything exhibited in the great galleries of the world.

This morning I awoke to a Monet sunrise ... a multiplicity of pinks and apricot brushed across a soft turquoise sky ... exquisitely beautiful, and fleeting. But unlike the sunrise or the crimson and white spotted toadstool that appears seemingly out of nowhere overnight and disappears just as quickly, many of natures masterpieces take many years to perfect.

​Their colour and texture is laid down over months and years, like a Michelangelo ceiling.
Picture
Picture
Picture
I stood in the Sistine Chapel one day, mesmerised by the beauty of the ceiling ... the light and shade ... the colour and meticulous detail. But as I stood in awe of what floated above me, I couldn't help but wonder how Michelangelo felt as he climbed down from the scaffold at the end of each day. How must his neck and shoulders have felt after painting all day above his head?

Michelangelo didn’t want to paint the ceiling, he was a sculptor, not a painter and knew nothing about painting frescos, but the Pope insisted so he had little choice but to reluctantly agree. How hard it must have been day after day climbing that wooden scaffold and continuing the back-breaking work for which he had no passion.
 
It took him four years or fifty-four months to complete. The work permanently damaged his eyesight. In fact the painting took such a toll on his body he's recorded as saying,
 my “stomach’s squashed under my chin,” my “face makes a fine floor for droppings,” and my “spine’s all knotted from folding myself over.”  

​His masterpiece came at a huge personal cost.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
And that's what I think when I come across a masterpiece of nature, like these wonderful bark canvases. Bark, like our skin, protects the vital living parts of the tree.  Through the battering of wind and storm, attacks by insects, birds and mammals and the intrusion of fungi and epiphytes, the bark bears the brunt.

Over years ... the tree bleeds sap ... the bark weathers and sheds ... the insect makes itself at home, branches break, wounds heal ... and a thing of beauty emerges.
Picture
Picture
Picture
I love that the bark of every tree is unique? The fine smooth bar of Beech makes it almost impossible for insects to get a foothold. The thick rugged bark of Oak is scaly with deep grooves and ridges and susceptible to insect damage. The Angophora sheds its bark every Spring and reveals a glorious new red bark that's been silently growing underneath.

Each of us is unique and so are the storms and gales that have battered and bruised us. We bleed and weep and through it all God is creating a masterpiece underneath the rough outer coating of our everyday lives.  


For we are God's masterpiece, created in the Messiah Jesus to perform good actions that God prepared long ago to be our way of life. Eph 2:10
Picture
1 Comment
write my essay for me cheap link
11/26/2017 09:00:22 am

Nature itself is a masterpiece. Not many people seem to agree with this because people think they are entitled to do whatever they want with nature. Nature is not ours to abuse or use for our own personal benefit. Nature is there for us to appreciate its beauty and for us to take care of it. That is the reason why God gave us nature - for us to cherish and maintain its beauty, not to pollute the Earth and destroy nature.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Glenyss Barnham
    ​I'm a mother and grandmother who loves  discovering beauty in unexpected places.

    Archives

    June 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly