Allegorical Images

Frank




The topic this time is about symbolic and allegorical images related to religion. Honestly speaking, this topic did give me a hard time since my knowledge about religion is so limited. I finally came up several images that take place constantly in art works.
No doubt, Christian cross is very common in art works. Through out art history, from our ancient ancestors to Renaissance in 14 century, from flamboyant Baroque style to a variety of modern art styles. The trace of cross is passing through from generation to generation as the faith is heriting. I'm sure that the image of Christian cross will keep passing on is art works. There is a wisdom in those old school painting when the figure of Jesus and cross are always shown together in the painting as the way it should be.




Thinking about next symbol, I was inspired by the painting hanging on the wall. Basically the painting is about the story of Noah's Ark, specifically, the landing moment of Noah's Ark. The focus of the painting is Noah's family which is gathering around in front of their colossus ark from which pairs of animals embarked on the earth. It is kind of incredible that the artist actually paint the figure of Jesus on top of a mountain watching what is happening in the world. The sad thing is I did not find this painting on line.
I found two more paintings related to this story on line. Although both of them are depicting the end of the story, the background setting are just totally different. The one on the top shows the darkness when storm and misery are about to come to its end. In contrast, the one at the bottom is the brightness and clearness shown from the painting. Isn't that amazing?






Another image that you may see in paintings in 14-16 century is a beam of light penetrating the clouds, mist or whatever it is, something really block the way between human and God.
In Giovanni Bellini's Saint Francis, which is the one right below this paragraph, is the picture of Saint Francis welcoming the coming of sun, some call it "a rendezvous with the sun" from the gesture of Saint Francis, it has been a long time since he saw sunlight. But that great amount of amazement can be only felt by Saint Francis because from the color in this painting, the sunlignt already fill this world with color and jubilance. Yellow is basically touching every corner of the world, warming the city far away like a blanket, swirling into the leaves, flashing on the face of rocks.




I'm not really sure whether I should include angels as an allegorical image because angels are not objects which is not belong to the genre I'm talking about. But in another perspective, angels' figures are far beyond their own meaning. Angel is becoming an image that can represent religious direction and meaning of a painting, although I do not try to deny that the presence of angels in some art works is more like a joyful character which has already lost its original meaning. Some artists even pick angel as the theme of a paiting.