View Single Post
Old 25th August 2020, 02:26 AM   #28
Philip
Member
 
Philip's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: California
Posts: 1,036
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by corrado26
Looking at these masterly painted works of art I wonder why the artist preferred painting these terrible and cruel themes instead of themes of beauty or daily life. If this has been the normal sight of things in the 15th and 16th century - cruelty, blood, pain, torture, this was a really bad time for mankind. The more as people were prepared to give lots of money for this kind of art. I am really glad not to have been born in these centuries.

I don't think it was gratuitous, the way many of us moderns (well not necessarily me) like dark and violent movies for the sensationalism and morbid thrill. Recall that this was an age that was much more religious than ours, these scenes he painted are from Biblical and early church narratives and the text pulls no punches. The Old Testament and the Lives of the Saints were full of lessons, as graphic as some of the stories are. The Law of Moses was stern indeed, and the moral absorbed from the stories would hopefully spare the faithful the discomfort of running afoul of its commandments.

Americans who grew up in the old Southern Baptist tradition certainly remember "fire and brimstone" sermons thundering from the pulpit!
Philip is offline   Reply With Quote