February 28, 2005

VALUES
by Pastor George Van Alstine

Amedeo Modigliani was born to an Italian Jewish family in 1884, and he became a struggling young artist in Paris in 1906.* He was always very sickly, suffering in his boyhood from pleurisy and typhoid and diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 17. This probably influenced him to express his goal as having “a brief but intense life.” He contributed to the briefness, if not the intensity, by his indulgence in alcohol and other drugs. He died in 1920 at the age of 35. The very next day his 21-year-old lover, Jeanne Hébuterne, eight-months pregnant with his child, jumped to her death from a 55th-floor window.

This is a story about values. Modigliani valued his indulgent life style over a few more years of productive work as an artist. Jeanne valued her relationship with him more than life itself. She made the same values-choice for her unborn baby.

What about the value of Modigliani’s art? For most of his life, people in the Parisian modern art community were unimpressed with his work. Ironically, it was in only the last year of his life that he enjoyed some recognition.

Here are some of the varying values placed on his work:
* In his struggling days, a generous patron gave him from $2 to $4 for his paintings, and 4 cents each for sketches.
* When he couldn’t pay his rent, his landlord grudgingly accepted some paintings, which he used to patch mattresses.
* Artist Pablo Picasso befriended him, but had little respect for his art, once painting over a Modigliani work because he had run out of canvases.
* However, at Modigliani’s funeral, art dealers hounded mourners to acquire his paintings; the price of his works went up ten times overnight, and forgeries flooded the market.
* A portrait of his lover Jeanne Hébuterne, which was done a few months before his death, recently sold at auction in New York for $31,300.000!

Who determines values? Are these choices arbitrary, or are some values fixed and solid?

Jesus said some interesting things about our values:

“Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” ’ ‘Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.’” (Luke 12:16-21)

“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?’ ” (Mark 8:34-37)

“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” (Luke 12:24)

How do you value your life? God placed this value on it: He gave his Son’s life to redeem yours.

*Based on the article “Modigliani Misunderstood,” Smithsonian magazine, March 2005, pp. 72-78.