A Visual Exegesis on Rilke’s Letter’s to a Young Poet
What's a visual exegesis, why is confusion so beautiful, and an encouragement for visual creators.
I recently posted a series of photos on Instagram showcasing a personal visual exegesis. The series of photos was based on a paragraph from Ranier Maria Rilke (REEL-ka) in his Letter’s to a Young Poet.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
What is a Visual Exegesis?
My understanding of visual exegesis comes from Chris who runs Full of Eyes — a leader in exegetical art and probably the best example I’ve seen of illustrative art intersected with Scripture (aka, it stands on its own without completely overtaking the authority of Scripture or creating emotional showmanship). Chris describes it like this:
Exegesis, or the process of unfolding a text’s original meaning, often refers to the work of a pastor as he seeks to understand a passage of scripture in order to preach it to his congregation. However, in “Visual Exegesis” the artist steps into the pulpit, as it were, and attempts to unfold a passage’s meaning through image rather than word. — FOE, Vol. 1
Art unfolds the meaning of a person, place, thing, all of life. It can peel back a layer and reveal a deeper reality. Rilke does this with his writing. We can do so with our interpretations of his writing. Let’s save the debate over interpretation according to the author’s original intent for another day. In the spirit of Rilke, I think he would be low-key thrilled that others are trying to live the questions out through art.
The Beauty of Confusion
I came across Rilke’s statement in a podcast episode and it hit me so hard I fell over and immediately thought of a series of photos that could help bring it to life. This is how the process works: some photo series ideas come straight to mind, other ideas take months (or years) to percolate as I live out the ideas first, and then they eventually break forth as photographs. It’s a process of paying attention to life, to look around and attempt connections where you see the connections. This is what having a voice can look like.
The idea of sitting in confusion and mystery and learning to live and love the impending identity crises of creeping questions has been so relevant to my last six months of lived out life. Even as I write this, I acknowledge the backlog of life’s mysteries sitting at the back of my cranium just waiting for my next quiet moment to spring at me and demand an answer. This weight is not only about my own unresolved questions, but about the unresolved questions of many people around me who are in seasons of discernment, waiting, and confusion.
What if demand for answers is the wrong answer?
I think I’m done with answer-answers. And no, this is not burnout. (Well, maybe it is.) This has nothing to do with Truth and error, or faith or lack of faith, this is simply a human acknowledgement that there will always be questions. There will always be mystery. There will always be things unseen worth contending. And, this side of eternity, I will always be a finite human with big dreams and physical limitations. The bothersome confusion of life usually lies in the tension between the dreams and the limitations.
Between Dreams and Limitations
What if we could just live the questions instead of answer the questions? What if the answer depends on us becoming1 the answer? What if the way to understanding is more experiential than intellectual? What if all of the commandments are, indeed, summed up in loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strengths and loving our neighbor as ourselves. What do we do with doubt?
More from Letters to a Young Poet:
Your doubt may become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become critical. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perplexed and embarrassed perhaps, or perhaps rebellious. But don’t give in, insist on arguments and act this way, watchful and consistent, every single time, and the day will arrive when from a destroyer it will become one of your best workers — perhaps the cleverest of all that are building at your life.
Part of the Process: How to See
There’s the ideation and the execution and, in my experience, they almost never align themselves. I had planned this visual exegesis to take place in Copley Sq. at the Boston Public Library. Jas was on board after a few other models had schedule-changes and she pushed back (in the best way possible) and suggested I take a step back and wait until we could align on a more cohesive look. In the photographer-model collaboration world, the style is essential for pitching to agencies and brands and many models want to show diversity in look and character so they can be hired on future sets that appeal to a wide audience. At first, I felt slowed down by this collaboration, as this was a personal art series with no future publication ambitions, but in retrospect I’m so grateful to have found a way to combine the two and be reminded that there is more life in art when created together.
Execution: We ran into issues shooting in the main room at the BPL because security was not in a very artful mood, so we had to scratch most of my image scene ideas and improvise in the moment. One must always be open to seeing what actually unfolds during a shoot and take it as divine intervention.
Thankfully, as is the beauty of Boston, Old South Church was across the street and we could saunter in and rearrange our images — paying particular attention to the sun streaming through the stained glass windows in the rafters.
My portrait aesthetic highlights the contrast between light and dark in an editorial or cinematic way, so I don’t sense a shift in style from what I normally make, but with visual exegesis it’s all about the details, so let’s get into it.
The first image of this set is my favorite. Jas looks like a beautiful broken doll. It’s almost aggressive in how dead-behind-the-eyes it is and, for me, reflects massive confusion, sadness, longing and general mystery behind all of life’s questions. Rilke talks about patience, but I’m interpreting it walk the line of numbness.
The second image is supposed to point us to answers outside of ourselves (up, away, above) while paired with “try to love the questions themselves”.
The third image is simply descriptive — here are some books, but not just any books. Books lit by a small lamp in a dark room. In secret. Waiting to be discovered.
The fourth image is about staring at the confusion itself — I wanted Jas to look directly at the camera for this and have her presence invade the world of the viewers. It’s supposed to be a direct acknowledgement of the unresolved life.
Image five is all about motion, moving, messiness, disruption, and a lack of clarity, hence the odd framing and motion crop in the midst of a street. This image was about creating a scene where others could step inside and be given space to ask the questions. (Side note: Had to stop myself from straightening this image, almost killed me, hah, but so glad I just let it be.)
In image six I wanted to incorporate deep contrast between dark and light and have another upward-glance. This is the image I was less sure about, paired with “and the point is, to live everything” — but it seemed right so I let it live.
The final video is a benediction, of sorts. A slightly morbid nod to falling asleep in the questions. A minor note. I want the viewers to rest in the uncertainty. I want that for myself — not to glamorize or exalt the in-between but to acknowledge these tensions as a landscape we have to learn to cultivate.
Just make something.
Part of living the questions means taking time to practice expressing what’s swirling around in your inner life. So, if you’re a maker, I’d encourage you to go make something. What are you thinking about? What are you inspired by? A visual exegesis is a simple way to add your voice onto a larger conversation, but you don’t have to make a visual exegesis to achieve the same results. Go outside, get inside, explore what’s around you, watch what unfolds — live the questions (and tell us what you see!)
I guess it’s time to read Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming.