My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it..
Let’s study art history together.
The Judgment of Solomon
| Artist | Matthias Stom |
|---|---|
| Year | c. 1640 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 152.5 cm × 204.9 cm (60.0 in × 80.7 in) |
| Location | Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
While I tend to focus on beautiful art (however one might define “beauty”), in my self-directed study of art history, there are sometimes works that are worth study with a beauty that is present, but not as obvious. This is one such painting.
The artist depicts a scene skillfully, and the use of color for Solomon’s robes draws my attention. However, the color is almost a distraction from the surrounding details which are quite emotional. One beautiful young woman looks bleakly toward a still-living baby, hung upside down while its life is in the balance. Another has her entire focus on Solomon, negotiating. You may next notice the person standing back, between Solomon and the mother looking bleakly toward the baby. That person is horrified, and would be clutching pearls if they were there. Most of the crowd, in some sense, represents us as the viewer. Everyone seems to be a mixture of contemplative and disturbed. Even the shirtless executioner, holding the blade in one hand, and the baby in the other, appears deeply unhappy with his assignment.
And then your eyes might be drawn to the dead baby, lying on the table in front of everyone. It’s shocking once you see it. The lack of color and the degree to which the dead baby matches its immediate surroundings seems to be both a communication regarding death itself, but also a reminder the audience that this entire confrontation started with an original tragedy. We sometimes fail to remember the first baby and the fact it is not easy to spot immediately is a reminder of our failure.
You might be familiar with this famous story, and as a modern reader it might have seemed absurd. How can justice be to kill the baby? The wisdom displayed here is that the *real* mother would rather see her baby given to the other woman than killed. Solomon never intended to kill the baby, but did intend to find the truth in the midst of turmoil.
1 Kings 3
16 One day two women came to King Solomon, 17 and one of them said:
Your Majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. Not long ago my baby was born at home, 18 and three days later her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us.
19 One night while we were all asleep, she rolled over on her baby, and he died. 20 Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed. She put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me.
21 In the morning when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn’t my son.
22 “No!” the other woman shouted. “He was your son. My baby is alive!”
“The dead baby is yours,” the first woman yelled. “Mine is alive!”
They argued back and forth in front of Solomon, 23 until finally he said, “Both of you say this live baby is yours. 24 Someone bring me a sword.”
A sword was brought, and Solomon ordered, 25 “Cut the baby in half! That way each of you can have part of him.”
26 “Please don’t kill my son,” the baby’s mother screamed. “Your Majesty, I love him very much, but give him to her. Just don’t kill him.”
The other woman shouted, “Go ahead and cut him in half. Then neither of us will have the baby.”
27 Solomon said, “Don’t kill the baby.” Then he pointed to the first woman, “She is his real mother. Give the baby to her.”
28 Everyone in Israel was amazed when they heard how Solomon had made his decision. They realized that God had given him wisdom to judge fairly.
Now, having read the story, can you identify which of the women from the painting are which from the story? The one who looks bleak – is she bleak because her still living baby is about to die or is she bleak because her real baby is lying in front of her, already dead. The circumstances of the painting tell us it’s the latter. She tragically and accidentally smothered her own baby a couple of days earlier. Imagine the weight of her guilt and shame. The identification changes how we interpret her expression. The thing she is doing now only adds to that. The one with her eyes on Solomon is the real mother of the still living baby. Her words are why he raised his hand.
We sometimes fail to feel pity for both of the women in this story. Pity is a form of love, persevering through hard circumstances, and sometimes toward difficult people. The painting reminds us not to forget the lying woman and her own loss, while vividly showing us the horror her pain and loss were capable of inflicting upon others. The beautiful pity we feel for her is only possible because it is preceded first by the justice of Solomon’s raised hand. Pity and mercy depend on justice leading the way. Without knowing that justice will be done, you don’t feel pity for her in seeing this scene, you feel something else. Things must be in a proper order. Just as justice precedes mercy and pity, truth precedes justice. Solomon had to discern the truth before he could administer justice. Wisely, though uncomfortably, Solomon discerned the truth by finding the real mother’s love.
Seeking the real mother’s love allows us to feel love and pity for the lying mother. Love begets love. Then justice prevented grief from begetting more grief.
(more via wiki)
The Judgement of Solomon is an oil on canvas painting by Matthias Stom, created c. 1640, representing the Judgement of Solomon.[1] It is held in the Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston.
Description
The painting depicts the famous Biblical scene of the judgement of Solomon, when the Hebrew king had to face two women who disputed the same child. One of the women had lost her child and claimed the other mother’s child as her own. The episode is one of the most well known that illustrates the famed “wisdom of Solomon”. The scene takes place in a very dark interior, where the figures are dimly illuminated, in a typical chiaroscuro. Solomon, seated on his throne, is dressed in red and wears his small crown upon a turban. The dead child lies at his feet. A executioner with a moustache, wearing only a loincloth, helds the living child by one of his feet, and has a sword in the other hand. He seems to be about to split the surviving child in half, so that no women can claim to be his mother anymore, like Solomon had decided. The king stares calmly and seems to be about to rule that the true mother of the child is the one who doesn’t want to see him dead. Other people, probably from the king’s entourage, watch or discuss the scene, some of them with a troubled look
