Carl Spitzweg’s “Ash Wednesday” invites us into the Lenten season with a spirit of introspective piety. We meet a downcast carnival clown, seated in the corner of a cell, his head bent, arms crossed, and face in shadows. A clown normally represents revelry, satire, excess, exuberance, letting go of convention, and laughing at life. But here, seated somber in a cell, he offers none of that. Instead, he sits in a nearly empty stone room, the color of ash and arid desert, with only a pitcher of water as provision. Leaving the revelry of Mardi Gras, this clown now dwells in the simplicity of the Lenten season.
The Gospel for Ash Wednesday finds remarkable expression in the figure of this clown. From head to toe, the clown is a figure who is made for attracting attention—his antics and costume say “Look at me!” In the Gospel, Jesus teaches us to be less concerned with how others may see us. In this light, the clown is not just a symbol of Mardi Gras exuberance, but also of the “look at me” culture that Jesus warns against. Here, the isolation is the attention-hog clown’s genuine moment of conversion—the moment of discovering his inner room where he may pray to God in secret.
Spitzweg’s clown is central, but the image’s background tells the rest of the story. The clown is bathed in light from an upper window, a subtle sign that his prison cell is perhaps instead a place of retreat, repentance, and conversion. In contrast to this upper light is a dark archway, the entrance to the cell. The composition of the clown, the window, and the archway forms a narrative triangle. The dark archway, directly across from the clown, shows us where he has come from. The window above lets in the light, and the rays point the way upward and invite the clown toward fullness, possibility, and hope. This time for him is a crossroads, a change of direction from darkness to light, just as the season of Lent can be for us.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that this season of Lent we make time to discern and reflect on how God invites us to use His gifts to bring comfort and peace to all the outcasts and children of God in our world.
