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Im Auftrag |
Description of the painting
In the first book of Moses, Abraham receives a commission from God to sacrifice his only son
Isaac. Abraham sets out to obediently carry out the order: "And when they came to the place
God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood on it and bound his son
Isaac, laid him on the altar on top of the wood and stretched out his hand and took hold of
the knife to slaughter his son". In the Bible, the story ends well. An angel announces:
"Do not lay your hand on the boy". Abraham looks up, sees a ram and sacrifices it instead
of Isaac.
This picture shows a somewhat modified sacrificial ritual. Abraham is about to slay Isaac.
The picture immediately recalls Ferdinand Hodler's numerous pictures of the woodcutter,
in which the woodcutter swings his axe to fell a tree. Hodler's son Oskar was the model
for the boy.
There is no sign of loving comfort in the family. Was the mother even informed? What a
father who is prepared to carry out the order without resistance! What a child who endures
his fate without resistance! And what a loving God who orders a contract killing! The angel
has not yet intervened and will not do so. The ram stands uninvolved in the background and
observes the scene curiously.
The painting was created when I was an artist in residence in Switzerland. During this
time, the Pope compared abortion to contract killing. One of the conditions of the
scholarship was to deal with Switzerland. The Hodler quote can be traced back to this.