>>515448556

Unbelievable cringe.

>>515451795

What makes the image of Kirk so unsettling is that it is, without intending to be, art. Even a master painter with brush and canvas could not stage such immediacy, such unbidden symbolism. Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo (c. 1606–09), now displayed at the Prado, arrests the viewer with
>“vivid spots of blood echo\[ing] the rich crimson of the robe mockingly draped across \[Christ’s] shoulders”
and a figure whose
>“sorrowful and resigned”
posture is illuminated by chiaroscuro (Museo Nacional del Prado, Ecce Homo). Kirk’s body, head thrown back, blood at the neckline of a shirt emblazoned with the word FREEDOM, mirrors that same interplay of illumination, violence, and resignation. Yet Caravaggio labored brushstroke by brushstroke to conjure this effect; in Kirk’s case, it is history itself, unfolding brutally and without mediation, that paints the scene.

Other masters sought to capture martyrdom through composition, gesture, and the drama of bodies in extremis. Correggio’s Ecce Homo (c. 1526) shows Christ with
>“drooping head and an expression of suffering resignation”
while Pilate appeals to a crowd calling
>“Crucify him”
(Wikipedia, Ecce Homo \[Correggio]).