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Untitled, self portrait as the devil (photo of detail),
Painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988),
acrylic on canvas,
Painted in 1982
© Christie’s New York, 10 May 2016 Sale, lot 36B |
When Jesus had cast out a devil, some of the people said, ‘It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils.’ Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from heaven; but, knowing what they were thinking, he said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin, and a household divided against itself collapses. So too with Satan: if he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? – since you assert that it is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils. Now if it is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils, through whom do your own experts cast them out? Let them be your judges then. But if it is through the finger of God that I cast out devils, then know that the kingdom of God has overtaken you. So long as a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he is attacks and defeats him, the stronger man takes away all the weapons he relied on and shares out his spoil.
‘He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters.
‘When an unclean spirit goes out of a man it wanders through waterless country looking for a place to rest, and not finding one it says, “I will go back to the home I came from.” But on arrival, finding it swept and tidied, it then goes off and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and set up house there, so that the man ends up by being worse than he was before.’ |
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Reflection on the Painting In today’s reading the words ‘devil’ and ‘Satan’ get mentioned nine times. All throughout art history, artists have depicted the devil as horned demon ranging from a monstrous appearance to a red creature with a triangular ending tail, or even as a tailor in Nazi uniform. What is interesting though is that in the earlier depictions of Satan, say in the 15th century, his image is one of a bestial, inhuman demon. But as the centuries go on, artists started rendering the personification of evil as, well, one of us, in human form. How did Satan’s image evolve from that of a goat-like demon to one who looks completely human. Take literature for example, Dante describes the devil as the creature that lay in the innermost circle of Hell; as a horned, bestial, furry figure. This changes in the 19th century. Instead of depicting the devil as someone to be very scared of and as a horrific figure, artists in general depict him as being one of us, but as very very sly, cunning, deceiving, twisted etc… If the devil wants to do his work, he wouldn’t want to scare us, but he’d rather look like one of us and use his powers of deceitful persuasion. So in a way, it is indeed a more correct way I guess of depicting the devil.
While the image of Satan as a horned, red figure persists in today’s popular imagination, contemporary artists depict the devil with the most human likenesses to date. This painting by Basquiat is quite unusual, as it does use the two horns, making that bridge between a very traditional depiction and a contemporary take on the subject. His art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience, and such as here: good versus evil. The figure of the devil (considered to be a self portrait) is set amongst a chaos of brush strokes, loose drips and splashes of paint. Yes, unfortunately Basquiat, a huge talent in New York in the 1980’s, fought his own demons, and sadly died at the age of 27. This painting was sold by Christie’s for a whopping $57 million!
Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading that good will be victorious over evil… whatever shape this evil might take, or however the devil might depicted as...
by Patrick van der Vorst
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