Ref:  6232

An original painting by the late L.F. Herbert, Oxford-based poet and painter, his art is expressionist-figurative style and in it we see a powerful humanist response to the experience of the second world war typical of this period in British art. Herbert with narrative themes that are contemporary but also historical explores the idea of society becoming re-born through pity and love. This piece is based on a detail from the crucifixion scene in Matthias Grunewald’s powerful late medieval masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece, a work for a hospital where people suffered leprosy and diseases of the skin.
To the left of the emaciated Christ, the Virgin who appears to be pregnant and is about the swoon at the sight of Christ’s suffering is comforted by John the Apostle, a mother carrying the promise of new life but suffering at the site of her son’s death and in turn being saved by a young man regarding her as the mother of mankind…there’s a sense of eternal renewal through mutual self-sacrifice and Christian love here that would obviously have appealed to Herbert.

English      post-1945

H: 77cm (30.3in)
W: 44cm (17.3in)
D: 2.5cm (1.0in)

SOLD