His Angels He Charged With Folly

Original painting SOLD, oil on canvas, 610 x 920mm, 2008

Explore the story of the artwork >>

 Print sizes and editions (limited to 275)

• Regular museum archival paper print - 365 x 550mm

Your unique limited edition fine art print

1. Sofia Minson creates your exclusive signed print
2. We ship for $25 in NZ and from $50 internationally
3. Your artwork arrives rolled, ready to be framed - do you need help? Request framing guidance
   
   

The story of His Angels He Charged With Folly

"Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth? They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it." - Job 4:18-20

In creating this work, the artist was considering the notion of transience on an astral scale. Just as mortals live and die and go through a process of karmic evolution, perhaps angels also move towards a union with the ultimate source, the oneness of God.

Everything under God is in flux, is imperfect in so many ways, yet perfect still. Representation of angels and otherworldly beings is subject to cultural perspectives and bias. In this work, the "angels" referred to in the title take different forms. Angels inspired by the christian tradition, but depicted with moth wings and elongated bodies, walk together on the shoreline. Carved manaia figures hang from the sky in the foreground. In Maori carving manaia can be seen with a bird's head and a serpent's tail. Their three fingers of birth, life and death represent the inevitable mortality of mankind. Manaia are said to be the messengers between the earthly world of mortals and the domain of the spirits. Sofia's interpretation of this is that in essence, manaia are angels.

The serene setting of this painting provides a place of convergence for these different cultural perspectives on the next world and its messengers. "Ye are all the leaves of one tree and the drops of one ocean." - Bahá'u'lláh

Select your print >>

Sofia Minson Paintings | New Zealand Artwork