Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) | Oilpainting by Martin Missfeldt

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Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin)

Image Description

This large oil painting is based on the original "The Martyrdom of St. Erasmus" by Nicolas Poussin from 1628. My version is painted in neo-Pointilist style, consisting of many colored dots. The painting is therefore reminiscent of a color vision test - especially from close distance (2-4 meters viewer distance). The further away you get, the more the individual color dots combine to form an overall impression.

Interestingly, as a short-sighted spectacle wearer, I benefit from this: when I take off my glasses, the effect already sets in at a distance of about 2 meters. Whereas I have found out in the meantime that in the end it is still somewhat different: while mixing the color dots with glasses leads to the fact that the picture becomes brighter altogether (so similarly, as if one simulates the effect with Photoshop at the PC), it shows up when taking off the glasses that the white intermediate space is quasi calculated out by the eye. So looking at the image without the glasses causes the image to become much more colorful, richer, and slightly darker. Why this is so is still unclear to me. Apparently, the white is "calculated out" by a natural mechanism in the eye, and the colors of the dots then mix directly with each other at the edges (or in the white spaces).

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In short: the picture becomes without glasses more exciting, more interesting. Basically, I'm making art for the myopic.

Why St. Erasmus? Why a baroque painting by Poussin as a model? The former is quite simple: after the whole Corona brouhaha and the multiple hostilities during the debate, I wanted to paint a series with martyrs. This unquestioning belief in the one truth (no matter which) is shattering. Just as shocking as the zeal with which "dissenters" are persecuted and defamed. Images of martyrs show that there are always at least two ways of looking at things. Why can't the persecutors just develop a little more tolerance? And why can't the persecuted give in a little, for the sake of peace? Why does things have to escalate like this. By the way: from this point of view also results that this whole health discussion has become a kind of religious war in the meantime.

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Picture-Details

Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 1)
Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 1)
Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 1) Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 2) Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 3) Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 4) Oilpainting The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (after Poussin) (Detail 5)