TRUTH (study)
oil on 4 panels, 14" X 15.5" SOLD
Truth is a painting done in the limited palette tradition, a richly symbolic work where the objects are bathed in a warm golden glow. The fragmented text “Pilate said … what is (top right)… truth?” (bottom right) is taken from the book of John chapter 18, verse 38:
37"You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
38"What is truth?" Pilate asked...
It is a question that has echoed throughout the centuries and is as relevant today as when uttered two millennia ago by the Roman governor Pilate. Whether in the halls of the academy, the seats of government, or the books and films of popular culture, the subject of truth as a very reality (is it a social construct, subjective or objective? etc.) betrays a struggle as old as humanity itself.
In the painting we see a bust by 19th century American sculptor Daniel Chester French, a maquette of a pensive angel on a shallow plane, behind which there are prisms of empty space (time), one space in which appears a single domino. This domino is seen tipping, frozen in the moment as it falls. Beneath it are others, clearly about to be impacted by the one falling. For the devout, for those familiar with the Gospels the allusions here are manifold, and meaning implicit.
At the appointed time there came one who did not merely pose and answer questions, but pointed to himself as the answer, the very source of truth itself.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life” John 14:6