The Black Torches (after E. Verhaeren) 2015 particle board, mixed media 1610Х415
The picture was created under the impression of the poem from the Emile Verhaeren’s collection with the same name. Streams of people stroll in the darkness to some unknown goal. Most of them are wrapped up in apathy. Some are crying to Heaven in despair. Others are beating drums: “Drums of the former offences are beating”. A fallen is trying to stand up. Others are nearly trampling him. Somebody, stricken with a crazy idea, has mounted on the pedestal and is calling to follow him. Hardly anybody is listening to him. The other two (the moment giving a hope), shaking off the apathy, finally recognize each other. The separate subject illustrates the Verhaeren’s poem “The Woman in Black”. A prostitute surrounded by “dogs of black hopes” waits among “the gold and darkness of the squares” for someone “whose knife knows the taste of blood”.
