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From spooky trees to giant trees to that tree that fell in the forest that no one heard: vintage tree imagery.

#tree #yew #yew tree #gravedigger #graveyard #open grave #cemetery #surrey #1840s #vintage illustration #illustration

Law and Grace

Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, c. 1472-1553)

Date: 1529

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: National Gallery Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Description

The painting Law and Grace (also called The Fall and Redemption of the Mankind) departs from Luther´s teaching about Justification by Faith.

The depicted scenes show Moses on Mount Sinai, receiving the stone tablet with Jewish law; under this scene Adam and Eve stand next to the Tree of Knowledge, precipitating Man´s Fall from Grace. The centre displays an erected brass serpent. Death is symbolized by an open grave with a dead body. Although the Prophet Isaiah belongs to the outdated period sub lege, in this painting, he turns to a man seated on the divide between the two eras, and points at the Redemptor on the Cross, i.e. to the era sub gratia. From the right, John the Baptist leans towards the man. John the Baptist also symbolizes the Redemption of mankind through Christ´s sacrifice, raising his right hand to Agnus Dei. The counterpoint to the scene on Mount Sinai is Mary on Mount Zion. She is approached by a flying Christ Child with a cross, i.e. Emmanuel. In the far background, we can see the scene of the Annunciation to the shepherds, and, finally on bottom right, the scene with a Resurrected Christ trampling Death and Sin.

#darkness #horror #open grave

Darkness stains your hand (originally: A sötétség megfogja a kezedet) 2024 Acrylic on paper

When I consider a form of death too deeply, I don't come away untouched; it feels like it stays with me. When I was little, I liked reading about certain illnesses, but it also frightened me, it always felt like simply reading about them would infect me with them; it doesn't happen in that sense, but in a different sense, it does; the microbes might not be in me, but the thought of it is, and there it stays. Once I touch the darkness inside the open grave, I will always feel it pull me back toward it. And there are many graves, and I lie down beside them like one gazing into a pond, and I contemplate them. And this time I'm not going to protest that I didn't sign on the gravestone because the grave is mine; because in a sense, that's the point - all these deaths, they all feel like mine. I'm courting Death in all Her many forms.

This doesn't come through in English, but in Hungarian, the word for staining also means holding, taking hold of - the title could also mean "Darkness takes your hand".