Barnett Newman discussing "Onement".

Through February the National Gallery of Art is offering a major exhibition of Newman's work.  I made a quick visit today between meetings.  I need to go back when I have more time.

The core of the National Gallery's Newman collection is the Stations of the Cross series.  A 1966 Guggenheim monograph includes this opening by the artist:

Lema Sabachthani—why? Why did you forsake me? Why forsake me? To what purpose? Why?

This is the Passion. This outcry of Jesus. Not the terrible walk up the Via Dolorosa, but the question that has no answer.

This overwhelming question that does not complain, makes today's talk of alienation, as if alienation were a modern invention, an embarrassment. This question that has no answer has been with us so long—since Jesus—since Abraham—since Adam —the original question.

 Lema? To what purpose—is the unanswerable question of human suffering.