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Saint Anthony in the Temptation
This Egyptian saint, known for starting the monkish orders of Christianity, had a desperate experience in the desert where he was overcome with temptation. Demons came to torture him, to offer him luxuries, to drive him mad. In the desert under such extreme conditions as the Egyptian deserts can provide, hallucinations are a likely source of his experiences. But it goes on after this.
The same psychological effect that we see when we look at clouds and see animals, the shapes of countries, or familiar faces gives us the sense that we are often seeing signs and symbols in reality. We can understand this phenomenon, or we can get caught up in a guessing game, where secret messages are constantly being sent to us from beings "beyond" this reality.
The work above is an intaglio sampler. The model is professor Kenneth Kerslake, a renound printmaker being tempted by each of the various intaglio techniques. Each amorphous area of the print are done in engraving, etching, mezzotint, drypoint, float ground, and other techniques. Yet if one looks hard enough, perhaps one can find a demon here or there too.
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