Different strokes

Arts: A stroll through the Metropolitan Museum of Art reveals how theology powerfully changes artistry | Marvin Olasky

Associated Press/Photo by Kike Calvo

Over five million people last year visited New York's famous Metropolitan Museum of Art—and many race through its quarter-mile length. At 2 million square feet it's three times bigger than the Louvre in Paris, so tourists who try to do too much end up with aching feet, glazed eyes, and a checked-off list of masterpieces quickly viewed—but little sense of how artists grappled with the problems of their era and, by blasting common assumptions, influenced our own.

Artist Rob Zeller agreed to meet me at the Met and point out a bit of what I (lifetime total of four courses in art history) would otherwise miss. Zeller, 42, was born in New Orleans, went to a Lutheran school, garnered degrees from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and the New York Academy of Art, goes to church in Brooklyn, and is married with one child and many excellent paintings that are viewable at robertzeller.com.