Greetings Readers!
Here is the next volume of our series ā The Wisdom of Art. This series invites us to pause from our busy lives to explore the wisdom of art and poetry.
Here is a painting, a poem, and a bit of proseā¦
The Blinded Samson (Painting)
The Blinded Samson is an oil painting from 1912 by Lovis Corinth (1858-1925). Corinth was a German artist and writer whose mature work as a painter and printmaker realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.
The blinded figure rushes towards the viewer with a power that threatens to shatter the picture. Samsonās terror is expressed in his heroic nakedness, embittered blood-streaked face, and hands that can smash stone. Since the Middle Ages, artistsā imaginations had been set on fire by the notion of āGodās Chosen Oneā who towered mightily above other human beings: as a prefiguration of Christ, as a counterpart to Hercules, and as an image of the tragedy of the hero who pays for his untrammeled sensuality with his eyesight. The Blinded Samson is Corinthās third and last treatment of this theme.
ā Source: Arts & Culture
The Dark Night of the Soul (Poem)
In a dark night, With anxious love inflamed, O, happy lot! Forth unobserved I went, My house being now at rest. In darkness and in safety, By the secret ladder, disguised, O, happy lot! In darkness and concealment, My house being now at rest.
