If Walls Could Speak

I always liked that expression, "If walls could speak." It's usually said in the context of wanting to know details of a conversation shared in a room behind a closed door. If the walls could speak, then we'd know it all, too. But alas, these inanimate things we live within do not speak. Well, maybe.

I am often quite amused reading the description some art historians give to paintings, attributing all sorts of hidden meanings into every last stroke of color and every tint or shade. It reminds me of the people who played the old Beatles' albums backwards until someone heard, "Paul is dead!" sparking rumors that went around the globe until the poor living Paul showed his face again. Must be an impostor! Our theory is true! We know what we heard!

I suppose if we look at anything long and hard enough, or listen to a song backwards, we can "find" all sorts of messages. The error at the other extreme is to imagine that we can display paintings, a source of visual communication, and assume it says nothing about us, whether about what we paint or what we choose to hang on our walls.

Visual imagery is powerful. In centuries past it was used to teach people who could not read. It gave understanding about life and mortality, virtue and vice. 

In the last century art was famously used for propaganda; perhaps most famously in the Soviet Russian imagery that fanned the fires of revolution, and the Übermensch imagery of National Socialist Germany. Flags, symbols, pictures, paintings. Such a threat they were that Hitler banned many types of art causing artists now famous to us to flee Germany in fear.

Imagery changes thinking and ideas, and all of us who live long enough recognize that ideas have consequences; such that even the most seemingly innocuous paintings communicate ideas about life and how we view it. In that way our walls do speak.

I cannot begin to imagine a preacher surrendering his pulpit to just anyone; certainly without some understanding of what the visitor intended to say. He guards his pulpit knowing that whatever words or ideas are spoken will certainly have a degree of impact on the people entrusted to his care. So he must first trust the speaker. 

In the same way, our walls are a pulpit, the art is the speaker. The things that matter most to us are depicted (if painted well) for centuries to come. Artists make a mark in time and hope it outlives them. As they mature, they learn to speak carefully, thoughtfully. The patrons and collectors of art may collect wildly at first, but in time, they give thought to what the work says. What the walls speak.

So what can be said for the empty walls in so many churches and public places? These mute, empty pulpits waiting to be brought to life again? What opportunity we have to impact our culture for good. Walls do speak, after all.