I recently came across, in one of my many art related sites, a painting that on the surface is one of many of the age: florid, religious, and with nude people. Alexandre Cabernel, a modern French artist of the old school, painted Fallen Angel in 1848.
As readily see that it has all the trappings of a typical piece of this era, and many eras before it. A naked person, wings, and angels flying about. From the looks of things this is Lucifer, why paint about any other fallen angel, huh? Lucifer, if you remember your Bible and Quran, is banished from Heaven for refusing to bow down to human beings. He seems to have landed on rocks and thorns with clothed angels fluttering above him, as if to mock him. Why he lost his pantaloons is a mystery. Probably one of those 19th century artistic things. Okay, nothing special here, let's move along, maybe to some of that good Hopper stuff.
But you would be doing yourself a disservice. Kind of like Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, there is more to this painting than meets the eye. I saw a detail of this painting that almost took my breath away. At my age nothing much does that: maybe a healthy Met's pitcher, a Whitey's shake, or a Bloody Mary that looks more like supper than a cocktail.
Look closer at the face.
He is holding his hands, maybe in anger, maybe to shield his face.
But that tear! That single almost impossibly hidden tear says it all in one stroke. The look in his eyes reveal almost every emotion a human can register: anger, shame, pride, pain, resentment, sorrow, defeat, revenge.
Again, I'm no artist but like Justice Potter Stewart said about hard core pornography, "I know it when I see it." This is what turns an ordinary ho-hum painting of an age into something remarkable. Excellent work.
Oh and he is a red-head. I've seen that look from my charges in daycare almost every day.
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