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Getting back into painting after a long hiatus. The next series that I'm doing begins with The LORD (YHVH) coming down in fire upon Mt. Sinai with the children of Israel waiting to hear from Him.

Reinterpreting Christ Cleansing the Temple

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegetty/6936625819/in/photostream

2/12/2012  My sister, a close friend and I went to the Getty Center Museum in Los Angeles to get another feasting of good art. Later in the day we noticed that there was a wing in off of one of the galleries that had a room specifically devoted to sketching and sculptures and artwork(Sketching Gallery). So being curious we went in and looked around, until I was struck by the painting Christ Cleansing the Temple by Bernardino Mei.

What struck me was not only the style and dynamic movement found with the figures but also the peculiar content in which Jesus (Yeshua) is enraged while aggressively pushing away the old woman's offering of pigeons.  According to the Gospel accounts as in Matthew 21:12  " Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves". The emphasis would have been his anger towards the priesthood making a profit of the sacrifices and as he stated in the following verse "And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

Based on this knowledge I wanted to do a significant change or different interpretation of the painting based on the Gospel accounts. Done in graphite on 11"x14"paper.