Sunday 4 January 2009

A painting of Karl Barth

Speaking of Oliver Crisp, here’s a photo of the painting he made for me in Princeton. It will soon be hanging proudly on my study wall:

12 Comments:

Anonymous said...

O, you're one lucky Barthian!

Dan Morehead said...

Barth had a picture of Jesus on his wall. :)

Ben Myers said...

Good point, Dan! But of course he also had pictures of Mozart and Calvin...

Anonymous said...

Actually Barth's favorite picture did not hang on his wall but was the one of Charlotte von Kirschbaum he kept in his wallet.

Ben Myers said...

No, the picture in his wallet wasn't of Charlotte — it was a picture of his adolescent sweetheart. He had hoped to marry her but it didn't work out; it sounds as though he was always still in love with her.

Anonymous said...

Just out of curiosity, have you seen the picture of the "adolescent sweetheart"?

Ben Myers said...

No, I just read about it in the Eberhard Busch biography. Busch provides more details about the woman and the reasons why they never married — and how, after all those decades, the elderly Barth mourned her when he heard that she had died. It's a touching story.

Bob said...

It is one thing to have an artist paint you a painting. It is another to a theologian paint a painting. But to have a theologian paint a theologian for a theologian....

What an incredible gift!

Anonymous said...

"You know I love you baby ever since I put your picture on my wall."
-T. Waits

Dan Morehead said...

Jesus had a picture of Elijah on his wall.

interior paint colors said...

blessed. just blessed.

Walter Taylor said...

As to the picture Barth kept in his wallet:

It was a girl whom he loved, and she loved him. But given that she came from a lower social background, his family (especially his father) disapproved strongly of the relationship, and put great pressure on Barth not to carry it through.

Barth was still a younger man when he got word of her death (she died of tb), mourning without leaving his room for several days.

This is how it was told to me by Eberhard Busch when I once had the honor of driving him some distance back to Atlanta, where he was teaching at Columbia Seminary.

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