![]() As we are told in the Gospel of St Mark:Īs He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. However, my client suggested both should be standing – this was a dynamic interaction between Christ and the Young Ruler, rather than a more simple ‘teaching’ scene. Initially I drew the figure of Jesus sitting – traditionally he would sit and the crowd would gather and sit around his feet. ![]() I roughly draw out the shape of the board and then do a few ‘brain-storming’ sketches to see what will work best. Usually Christ is shown sitting while the other person stands, and so this is how I began the sketching out process. I looked at other icons and frescoes of this kind of interaction – Christ meeting the Samaritan Woman, in particular, as we know this story and it is more frequently found in extant examples. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God” If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. My client also brought up a passage from the Hebrew Bible, extremely relevant to this icon:ĭeuteronomy 8:11-20: “Moses convened all Israel, and said to them: Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. Not having a prototype to work from was in many ways liberating: we talked directly about the biblical text, reading around the scene and description. So we had a short length of time, a very particular moment to be shown, and a client who really knew what he wanted this icon to communicate clearly. Their spiritual position is precarious even if not their social and logistical position.” In our correspondence, he said “The wealthy need a savior too, and they know it. Does this mean that before this moment, Christ had not felt warmth – or love – for this rich young person? What changed for Christ in that moment that it is marked in the gospel? My client was very clear that THIS was the moment to be shown in the icon – that second when we are told how Christ felt agape for this person who had approached him with such an important question. ![]() ![]() Like many Christians I was both baffled by the imagery but also struck by a few words in the sentence before, when we hear “Christ looked at the young man and warmed to him”. I had heard this story before of course – it is the moment when Christ says “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven”. Normally I would have said no straight away, but something about this icon and its theme intrigued me. This one would have to be different and would have to jump the queue to be completed in time. Most icons are commissioned, discussed and then go onto my waiting list. Would I like to paint a new icon depicting Christ’s interaction with the Rich Young Ruler described in each of the Synoptic Gospels? Yes, of course! This spring, I received an email from an American client which left me both intrigued and slightly anxious.
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