feast days
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Processione della Partigiana (bella ciao), 150 x 190cm (about 59 x 75"), oil on linen
L’ascensione, mezzogiorno, 60 x70cm (24x28”), oil on linen
Chi è come dio, 100 x 85cm (about 39x33"), oil on linen
The archangel Michael is known in Islam as a friend to humanity, the giver of rain; the Angel of Mercy. In Hebrew his name is a question: “who is like god?” In early Jewish scriptures he is the “prince of Israel”; advocate and protector of the Jews. In Catholicism Saint Michael is the Leader of the Army of God, the Angel of Death, Weigher of Souls, and Guardian of the Church. Here in the deep south of Italy, San Michele is descended from the pagan god Attis, consort to the Great Mother. He was a vegetation god whose death and resurrection play wholly into the celebration of the yearly return of spring.
In this painting, he is carried up to the hilltop on the shoulders of believers. Righteousness is a brittle thing, whatever name we give to what we worship, however much we feel we own our particular gods. Dogmatic and inflexible belief cracks in the light of a wider open understanding: there is a larger context, a much broader truth. Who is like god? All of us I think, even more so than the ones whose names we use to destroy each other. It's we who are always creating. |
