The Most Terrifying Painting I Have Ever Seen

[Asta]

Pitch was the propellant of choice back then. I'll probably have nightmares tonight.

[Canadian_watcher]

it's most terrifying because of the crowd. look at them, all so sure of themselves - all so comfortable that they'll never be in the ring ---- or maybe all so terrified that they might be and yet still, there they are, watching like fucking assholes.

that's terrifying. Awful things happen because crowds so often do NOTHING but watch.

[compared2what?]

I like how the lion is all troubled by the ominously darkening sky and the tiger is just like: "What's for dinner? Smells delicious!"

Maybe I'm heartless. But that's what made an emotional impression on me.

[compared2what?]

That's also more or less my interpretation of the painting, too, btw. Kind of like:

The martyrdom is such an evil and unnatural act that it darkens God's creation and should give all God's creatures pause, even the dumb beasts.

Nothing against the tiger. He just can't see what's going on yet. It's implicitly clearly the Romans who are being shown as savage.

Maybe you're not supposed to, but it seemed natural to me to start with the lion and follow his gaze. And that's where it took me.

ON EDIT: I guess I felt like the lion was a proxy for the person looking at the painting. Facing the same way, etc. I identified with the lion.

[FourthBase]

That's also more or less my interpretation of the painting, too, btw. Kind of like:

The martyrdom is such an evil and unnatural act that it darkens God's creation and should give all God's creatures pause, even the dumb beasts.

Nothing against the tiger. He just can't see what's going on yet. It's implicitly clearly the Romans who are being shown as savage.

Maybe you're not supposed to, but it seemed natural to me to start with the lion and follow his gaze. And that's where it took me.

ON EDIT: I guess I felt like the lion was a proxy for the person looking at the painting. Facing the same way, etc. I identified with the lion.

LOVE this interpretation.

[justdrew]

It's christian propaganda. It never happened. There was indeed some persecution of early Christians, not an uncommon situation for a new cult to find itself in in that part of the world at the time. but then they went on and welcomed it, a martyr is the greatest thing a christian can be, per long tradition. Some intentionally insulted the people and religions around them until crowds demanded execution. An proconsul in Asia has a delegation of Christians come to him asking to be killed. He obliged a couple, probably because of their insults to his religion, then he sent the rest away, saying if they wanted to commit suicide, they could go find a rope or jump off a cliff.

Meanwhile, post persecution (by believers in other religions) we find no shortage of Christians persecuting each other for any variance of believe for centuries. Far more have been killed BY Christian persecution than Christians were ever killed. The inquisition was exactly the same as had been done to a few early Christians, but written far far larger.

The legacy of built up mythology of persecution has been used ever since by Christians to justify their own extensive and well documented far larger uses of violence and their sowing of many many seeds of hatred.


Jan Luyken. Execution in Strassburg in 1215. Engraving. XVII.

http://www.inquisition-art.net/eng/kazn04.htm

[82_28]

I wouldn't call it "Christian propaganda" at all. If you check out his other shit, Gerome doesn't seem to have an agenda. I don't know much about him other than what I have read. Terrifying photo still.

[FourthBase]

It's christian propaganda. It never happened. There was indeed some persecution of early Christians, not an uncommon situation for a new cult to find itself in in that part of the world at the time. but then they went on and welcomed it, a martyr is the greatest thing a christian can be, per long tradition. Some intentionally insulted the people and religions around them until crowds demanded execution. An proconsul in Asia has a delegation of Christians come to him asking to be killed. He obliged a couple, probably because of their insults to his religion, then he sent the rest away, saying if they wanted to commit suicide, they could go find a rope or jump off a cliff.

Meanwhile, post persecution (by believers in other religions) we find no shortage of Christians persecuting each other for any variance of believe for centuries. Far more have been killed BY Christian persecution than Christians were ever killed. The inquisition was exactly the same as had been done to a few early Christians, but written far far larger.

The legacy of built up mythology of persecution has been used ever since by Christians to justify their own extensive and well documented far larger uses of violence and their sowing of many many seeds of hatred.


Jan Luyken. Execution in Strassburg in 1215. Engraving. XVII.

http://www.inquisition-art.net/eng/kazn04.htm

Easy way to appreciate the painting...
Regardless of your correct identification of Christian propaganda:

Imagine the red-hooded guys as Catholic clergy, the lions as a symbol of the Crusades and Inquisition, the poor bastards about to be lion snacks and burning on crucifixes as pagans and freethinkers and Jews and homosexuals and whoever else the Catholic Church has brutally persecuted throughout history. The audience in the stands: Good god-fearing Christian commoners, of course. And in the background, the holy spirit, the real God, the real Jesus, express their disapproval and despair in the form of foul skies.

[Simulist]

I wouldn't call it "Christian propaganda" at all. If you check out his other shit, Gerome doesn't seem to have an agenda. I don't know much about him other than what I have read. Terrifying photo still.

Gerome probably didn't have an agenda, except to paint what he believed then to be the truth. In one sense, it is the truth (even though, as I mentioned here previously, these events at the Colosseum probably didn't happen, see: http://www.the-colosseum.net/history/martyrium_en.htm): humans have displayed a capacity for ferocious cruelty to each other from the very beginning, and it is a disturbing component of our nature. Taken in that way, this painting makes a terrifyingly powerful statement.

But JustDrew is also right, in my opinion. This historically false narrative about lions eating Christians in the Colosseum, etc. continues to be used as a rallying point of propaganda today in order to sort of "gin up the troops" about how Christians are still being persecuted even in modern times. Every time Christianists lose a political battle, for example, claims that "Christians are being persecuted" can be heard loud and clear; the florist in Washington State who refused to serve her engaged gay customers "because of Jesus" is just one, small example. The Washington State Attorney General is rightly suing the florist, and certain Christian groups are claiming "persecution."

[82_28]

That's good 4th. I meant to address the skies earlier and the statue at the top of the hill but forgot -- the darkness enveloping Rome. I don't believe this is any more Christian propaganda than the truth of the matter. In fact, what was Gerome envisioning as the light source here as it is obvious it didn't "translate" in the painting to on high.

[barracuda]

It's closer to Frank Frazetta's work than Christian propaganda, really.

[justdrew]

[compared2what?]

It's closer to Frank Frazetta's work than Christian propaganda, really.

Those academic-type painters do come across more like illlustrators than fine artists a lot of the time. Poor things, I like that about them, though.

Also: You guys. Of course it's a very Christian representation of world history. I wouldn't say "propaganda," although I suppose it's not wrong. I'd say it was a big, showy work in a self-consciously "serious" but actually sentimental style that was then popular though about to get owned by impressionism.

...

In the loose sense of "about."

That's probably art-historically wrong. But it's what I'd say anyway. I think it's moving.

[Sepka]

The painting is based on a fairly famous passage from Tacitus's "Annals", book 15, chapter 44. Tacitus, who was scarcely a Christian apologist, along with most of his contemporaries, thought that Nero started the Great Fire to clear space for his 'Golden House' (a vast palace cum amusement park). He discusses the ensuing persecution of the Christians in that context:

Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his Gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his Circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man.

I'm using the translation from here - http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... B*.html#44

That's the Circus Maximus in the picture (see the chariot ruts?), and those three phallic-looking structures are the 'metae', or cones. There were a set at each end of the racetrack. They were oversized, stylized Roman survey markers, such as would be used to mark a road. Here they mark the turning point of the track. They were a general feature of racetracks, although the Maximus quite fittingly had enormous ones. I believe that's the Palatine Hill (where Rome was founded) rising in the background, although I'm not entirely sure.

[FourthBase]

The painting is based on a fairly famous passage from Tacitus's "Annals", book 15, chapter 44. Tacitus, who was scarcely a Christian apologist, along with most of his contemporaries, thought that Nero started the Great Fire to clear space for his 'Golden House' (a vast palace cum amusement park). He discusses the ensuing persecution of the Christians in that context:

Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his Gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his Circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man.

I'm using the translation from here - http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... B*.html#44

That's the Circus Maximus in the picture (see the chariot ruts?), and those three phallic-looking structures are the 'metae', or cones. There were a set at each end of the racetrack. They were oversized, stylized Roman survey markers, such as would be used to mark a road. Here they mark the turning point of the track. They were a general feature of racetracks, although the Maximus quite fittingly had enormous ones. I believe that's the Palatine Hill (where Rome was founded) rising in the background, although I'm not entirely sure.

You are a gentleman and a scholar. Here, anyway. Thank you. I'm the loser who took five years of Latin, replete with Roman history, and could not provide what you did.