Abstract art is a term used to describe art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality, but instead uses shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect. Post Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne influenced 20th century art enormously and led to the advent of 20th abstract art. Artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Pablo Picasso became famous for their abstract art. Such art tends to provoke strong reactions (you either love it or hate it!), but certainly with its strong emphasis on colour and shapes, it is not easy to ignore this art, even if you don’t understand it!
It is very easy for us to think about sin in the abstract, to have a vague idea of wrongdoing which is never particularly specific. The penitential psalms (Ps 6, 8, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143, so named by Cassiodorus, a Roman statesman and monk who lived in the 6th century and who was responsible for overseeing the copying of many ancient manuscripts) do not allow us this luxury. These psalms describe people’s anguish and sorrow over sin, and force us to understand that whilst our sinful natures (inherited from our forefather, Adam, as Ps 51:5 indicates) do not need a ‘specific’ sin to be sinful, specific sinful acts cause us despair and rupture our relationships, with God and with other people. In the case of Ps 51 (and possibly Ps 32), a specific context for the psalm is given (see 2 Sam 11 and 12 for details of David’s adultery, deceit and murder); we see in this way the sorrow and grief over sin which penitence truly marks.
These psalms contain specific words for sin: transgression (a rebellion and refusal to submit to rightful authority), sin (a missing of the mark, a failure to hit the bullseye prescribed for us by God), iniquity (from a word meaning bent or twisted, having the nuance of perverting that which is right, of erring from the way) and deceit (a deliberate cover-up, falsehood or hypocrisy.) They also focus on the forgiveness and cleansing found in God because of His mercy, compassion and love. As such, they become models for us when we sin (see 1 Jn 1:8-10), showing us how to approach a holy God in repentance, contrition and trust.