Protection against illness or evil - Temptation on the mount by Duccio Di Buoninsegna

Temptation on the mount

Context

As written in an earlier blog, “Evil could be perceived as something morally wrong or bad it tends to cause great harm or destruction and is believed to be void of conscience”. This image is inspired by the chapter of the bible which tells of Jesus being tempted by the devil.

“The Devil is the title given to the supernatural being, who, in mainstream Christianity, Islam, and other religions, is believed to be a powerful, evil entity and the tempter of humankind.”

- Wikipedia


The devil tempted Christ on 3 occasions: the first was to eat during his fast in the dessert, the second at the highest point in the temple of Jerusalem to test the Lord and the third temptation was at the highest point on the mountain. The devil took Jesus to the mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor…



“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

- (Matt. 4:1-11)

Therefore Jesus protected himself and the rest of the world from the evil of Satan.

Actual Meaning

As written above the meaning of the image is to portray how Jesus was able to fight off Satan by resisting his evil temptations and overcome sin.

What the piece means to me

The painting to me symbolises the inherent greed instilled in all humans and how temptations can bring out this quality in the best of people but that it can be overcome, just like Jesus overcame the temptation set out by the Devil on the mount. To me the black body of Satan could not only represent evil, but the dark side of a person’s personality. I also believe that the positioning of the figures are symbolic in that good is higher up than evil enhancing the underlining message of morality.

Materials used and how they compliment the meaning

Although I have no knowledge of how this piece of work by Duccio Di Buoninsegna I feel it will have been created using oil paints on canvas. Also i feel that the background in the painting may have been made using gold leaf to create the vivid metallic finish.

Overall Judgement

Overall i feel although this image is quite dated it is interesting in composition and symbolisation with good use of vivid colours and techniques with different medias, such as gold leaf to great a great overall texture.

My Response

This image is my response to the work of Duccio Di Buoninsegna, as seen above, it has a very different feel to the overall image because of the images used. The idea behind the use of batman in my work was to add a different angel on the theme of protection of evil to bring it more up to date with todays society. Another difference between the pieces is that I have created mine using digital manipulation in Photoshop. I used layers to great the background colour and filters to creat the texture and gradiant.