The work reinterprets the story of Cain and Abel, attempting to bring it into a contemporary setting. To do this, the artist distanced himself from the rhetorical construction of the biblical text and deliberately toned down its symbolic and religious value. What is depicted is a scene of quarreling and fighting between brothers, an everyday occurrence in family life. The reasons for the clash remain unexplored, probably the usual envy, the same that drives Cain to kill Abel. The scene is further enlivened by the presence of the parents (Adam and Eve) who, bent over, attempt to separate the bodies of the infants. The identity of the perpetrator, Cain, is deliberately concealed in the representation, as is that of the victim, Abel (just as the direct reference to the biblical scene is in doubt), thus removing the illustrative and instructional component of the image. the intent produced is, therefore, not to transpose the predetermined will of the religious text into the reality of the bodies but, instead, to represent a phenomenological constant to which, if desired, an already formulated mythological narrative can be applied.
The title “The Knot” refers to the myth of the Gordian knot cut by Alexander the Great to resolve an otherwise inextricable situation; the children, knotted together in perpetual conflict, are about to be separated by the whip wielded by their mother, who, having elevated herself to supreme judge, god, imposes her divine law, thus temporarily halting the course of natural law.
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