Blessed are the peacemakers (Beatitudes) by Bryan S. Halls (Original Painting)

The Beatitudes
By
Bryan S. Halls

Beatitudes, the. Christ’s promise of coming blessings in the Sermon on the Mount’ (Mt 5:3-11) and the Sermon on the Plains (Lk 6:20-22).
-Oxford concise dictionary of the Christian Church

5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”
5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of their righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
-The NIV study Bible

Blessed here refers to the ultimate wellbeing and distinctive spiritual joy of those who share in the salvation of the kingdom of God.
-The NIV study Bible

The Beatitudes are a beautiful grouping of promises that are to come to the people in which Jesus describes. They give hope where there is not.
When learning about these promises in Bible study with my Pastor Mike Maroney I was bombarded with ideas on how to celebrate and give life visually to these bible verses. At first, I was still working in a way I had with my previous series “In Prayer” where there were serial numbers instead of titles. I thought this was a way in which that I could get the viewer to take out of it what they wanted from the image. I felt it wasn’t for me to preach on what I believed but to have them make it something of their own. That was until I had a grouping of thoughts one day in church when Pastor Mike was talking about oaths and it brought me back twenty-three years earlier where I made an oath to God that if he/she were to take away the demonic voices then all my work will be devoted to the glorification of his/her word. God did not let me down, and I no longer could give up on my oath to God. Something that I had left in the wind since my water heater blew and my studio was flooded for the first time destroying a good number of my paintings. For the next two years I would paint in a Christian format, but not glorifying the word. So, after that day in church this series of Beatitudes really came to life as a piece of Christian art. No more were these paintings to be images influenced by the word, but were images describing the word through their movements portraited.

I love the human body, from the female soft curves to the angles of the masculine form I love to sculpt and paint the nudes. Something I fell in love with during my time at the Toronto School of art. There the instructors of the school would profess the importance of the human form giving us the opportunity to create directly Infront of live nudes as well as preaching the need of anatomy in creation. This would drive me to research and study great masters of the human form through out history. This out pouring is what I fell back on when first thinking of this series. I wanted to give of a feeling similar to the greats, Rodin, Michelangelo, and Bernini, to name a few. To make the human nude not a symbol of sexuality but of raw power of Gods greatness and human beauty. To have Gods words be delivered through Gods greats creation the human form.