The Sacrifice in the Abrahamic Religions

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The Sacrifice in the Abrahamic Religions. The sacrificed life as the equivocal link between God and Man.

The Sacrifice in the Abrahamic Religions

As an extension of the thought about the sacrifices' death as a necessity for the creation of new life, and also as an extension of the tought about the absolute obedience within a belief system, we see an example in the big vertical triptych.

Farangis shows an Islamic and a Jewish priest with the same posture as Mithras, the slayer of the steer, typically displays it: how with his sight turned away he pushes the short sword into the throat of the sacrificed animal and how the animal dies bleeding. Here too analogous to the bleeding steer of the Mithras mystery, the blood of the sacrificed animal is poured into a vessel - now a large drinking glass. In the depiction of three crosses pertaining to Christian symbolism and with the rough indication of a mouth that wants to drink this blood, a linkage that stands between the abrahamic religions becomes plain.

In the range of works entitled FOR EXAMPLE MITHRAS Farangis has dealt with a subject which is currently highly sensitive. In the first few years when she started to work on this theme, it was still rare that contemporary artists from the western cultures dealt with religion. This theme was more expected from the arts of the so called native cultures that are still inspired by their archaic gods in their arts. Almost surprised we notice now, that in our search for our lost values and in midst of an extremely tough and painful confrontation with the non-Christian world, more and more often the sense and the non sense of religiosity is being asked about.

Werkzyklus

  • See the first part of the Mithras Werkzyklus Zum Beispiel Mithras, Part I, on: mithras.farangis.de.

On Mithraism

Large view of the paintings