Excerpt
Witches in Flight is a thinly veiled allegory with striking imagery in which myth and reality are intimately intertwined with the absence and presence of reason, respectively. A floating formation of three dunces-hat wearing warlocks actively torments a naked man in mid-air as he is carried away. The warlocks and their catch are suspended in an airless space framed by pure blackness and seemingly emit their own light (shadowless). Directly below, a fully dressed man is “caught” in their light as he desperately tries to flee over a barren landscape. He is warding off unseen evil as he hides under a white sheet. In the darkness on either side are a “fallen” figure, face downwards and covering his ears; and an “ignorant” donkey looking on unfazed, eyes wide open and ears pricked. The form, content and symbolism of this painting all suggest “evil spiralling out of control” as “reason goes to sleep” in a relatively modern way. Suddenly, the triumphs of the enlightenment and rationality have fuelled the expression of the irrational and a “dark romanticism” that act as counterpoints
- ©ERS 2014
