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1536 Oil on oak, 140 x 198 cm Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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Unquestionably, within a few years, the tone of Eminem’s lyrics has dramatically changed. Whether or not the massive makeover of this popular rapper’s image is the result of a Pinocchio-like moral atonement, or the latest commercial maneuver by corporate image-packagers, this is not our concern here. However, what has prompted my curiosity is that the so-called “cleaning-up of Eminem’s image” has often resulted in the ultimate question: “Has Eminem finally come home, like the prodigal son?” In some respects, and to the modern eye, there could be an hypothetical ground, as it where, to draw an analogy between the juxtaposition of Eminem’s lyrics and the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15, 1 1-22): “So the father, with an aching heart, gave to the boy his living, his inheritance. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living." Arguably, the constant visual barrage of images proposed by today’s mass media depicting teenagers indulging in wanton extravagances, seems to suggest that there is probably nothing better than squandering those precious years, "wasting the powers of mind, heart and soul". After all, the theme of the prodigal son that leaves home with money and returns in tatters could represent life’s journey into the unknown, the uncharted waters of every teenager. Eminem converted his rite of passage into a huge commercial success; however, for the most part, this journey basically amounts to either a college degree with a job prospect, or social alienation, wandering, drug abuse, violence and depression. In art history, the images of the young man wasting away his inheritance in debauchery, amidst women of easy morals, dissipating his substance with riotous living and abandoning himself to the sins of the senses, became the leit-motif of an era dominated by northern Europe’s Counter Reformation. Seeped in the sacred tone of religious themes that dominated artistic subject matter, several 16th century painters chose the theme of repentance and the infinite nature of divine mercy. They painted religious subjects and scenes from ordinary life in a strongly visual, realistic style, with a satirical attitude. Flemish artist Jan Sanders Van Hemessen peoples his scenes with strongly characterized, almost caricatural figures, that we find again in several of his paintings: the aging pimp with a cupidinous and revolting grin, the red-faced, jeering drunk, the avid gambler, the prostitute. These large figures strike the viewer with their bold foreshortening and their brusque gestures.The iconography created in this way was to be immensely successful and would underlie the Brothel Scenes and Joyous Companies that flourish in later Flemish painting.
HEMESSEN, JAN SANDERS VAN (b. ca. 1500, Hemishem, d. 1556, Haarlem) | |
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