God can't be represented in a picture, nor can any spiritual master from ages past, or any angelic being. Even so, God, Buddha, and Jesus seem to have been personified in certain universal ways. Buddha is almost always depicted as sitting cross-legged, in perfect repose, wearing a robe, his hands in his lap, while pointing and curling the fingers of his hands in certain specific ways, ways that have meanings to his followers. Jesus is pictured as a kindly, long-haired, and rather handsome guy wearing a robe and having outstretched arms, beckoning you to come to him. Since there exists no pictures of either of these spiritual masters, these representations are the most popular ones, each representing that master's bearing.
God is pictured like the Greek and Roman gods of old, he a mighty-looking yet aged man, in possession of a full white beard, and don't ever confuse him with Santa Claus because he can be wrathful.
Currently, there are a lot of spiritual masters/teachers, attained ones, wise, astute men and women who claim to know God very well and exemplify a lot of his qualities but with these folks it's hard to pinpoint exactly where God resides in them. If you look at their pictures, or see videos of them, they may or may not have compelling features but they do seem to carry themselves in ways different from most people so where exactly 'God' (or the qualities thereof) is in that mix is difficult to determine. Is God in their eyes? Hands? Voice? In their 'aura'? All of the above? Seems to me that 'God quality' is a much more comprehensive thing.
Shazam!
Carl Raw- Unsplash.com
Anybody that does art is faced with the dilemma of trying to capture the essence of their chosen subject matter and the better artists are able to do that but when it comes to the felt phenomenon known to all as 'presence', true spiritual presence, it's "Yes I think I got some of it" and "No that's not 'it'. Something (probably a lot of something!) is still missing".
Truth is, God can't be pinned down, nor can Jesus or Buddha or any saint/prophet/teacher, of which there are a lot- The Holy Spirit, Isis, Mother Mary, Lord Shiva, Sanat Kumara, White Eagle, Horus, Odin, Saint Germain, Commander Ashtar, Lady Nada, Mary Magdalene, Krishna, Kuthumi, etc., and then on top of that there are all those pictures of angels- (especially the ones of angels). It's not people that are trying to be captured and then demonstrated to others, in a visual fashion, it's energy. Love- can you paint that? Truth? What does that look like? Honor? Integrity? Compassion? These are qualities and states of being that can't be represented through form of any kind. They can't really be put into a painting or a statue, but your subject can hold a noble pose.
In drawing, I have seen how PERVASIVE these mythological representations of qualites and states of being are but, problem is, we really have no way of picturing them or representing them otherwise. Basically, what we are inundated with are pictures, paintings, and statues of beings akin to superheros. We can only do this, it is our attempt at bringing what we can't see into form but then again, love and compassion and warrior energies cannot ever be contained in form. Form is far too limiting. These statues and paintings are caricatures of the real thing, cartoon pictures of power and vastness, intimacy and envelopment. How do you draw, paint, or sculpt that?