The Golden Muse

Across Washington Park and opposite Music Hall is a mural of a lady, pensive yet inspiring. She is painted with golden hues, and banners of musical notes wave about her. She is the Golden Muse, the muse for music.

The Golden Muse

It makes me ponder art and function. Jon brought up the question of why we think art is contemplative. I found the same issue in Nicholas Wolterstorff’s “ Art in Action”. The Golden Muse is a massive mural on one side of a four story tall building, situated in an area of town, Over-the-Rhine, which for decades have been a slum area with daily murders, prostitution, drug trafficking and hopeless poverty.  The area is under gradual rebuilding, and it is nice to see some of the streets cleaned up.  This is a slow process and not altogether smooth, for the poor and the destructive elements are also gradually removed. The poor cannot afford to live there any longer. The criminal element finds new neighbourhoods to exploit.

            But the Golden Muse is a mural takes no place and no sides in the disagreements. Still, I could not avoid her as I walked in the park. She was like a hovering representation of beauty, emanating from a brick wall. She looks Greek, perhaps. She is not the only mural in town. Many of these painted areas brighten up the street, and it brightens up the soul. 

Cincinnati mural

There is a wall of vegetables. The function of this mural is not contemplative, as such, but it signals healthy food, abundance, - am I turning contemplative again? Is all interpretation, all suggestions of meaning ‘contemplative’? I do not think so. Colours are in themselves cheerful.

            Composition in city landscape has a certain air of sculpture about them. The space between Music Hall and the Golden Muse is a ‘sculptured’ area, in the way that there is a clear connection between the two elements: the building and the mural. It is a thematic connection, a resonating response. Between them is now a nice green lung, Washington Park.

Music Hall in Cincinnati

For centuries murals have decorated internal space, particularly in great cathedrals. Frescos may cover a large part of a wall, ceiling, and various niches. It is contained inside the building, and the outer walls are like demarcation lines for the sacred space. 

I have wondered from time to time if we as Christians, as a local congregation, took our sacred space and time with us out of the building to share it in the open. Many of my fellow villagers never go to church, but they do not mind the message of the Gospel. I would love to have gatherings of believers, with song and liturgy, in the public space! I would love to share our Christian faith, hope, and love more visibly. Perhaps a mural of an outer wall would be able to bring some of that to the passer-bys, as well? The message of peace with God is for all.