Cain and Abel Depicted

Maurice Heerdink was born in 1955 in the Netherlands. Originally he began themed works in the Maya culture before moving on and giving into his fascination with movies and show biz. But the pay checks weren’t long enough and Heerdink began doing commercial work and eventually moved onto male nudes. Next he got interested in ancient mythology before returning to portrait work. This piece is very detailed but several things tend to stand out to me more specifically. One thing that stands out is the dark barren back round. This seems pretty fitting though considering it is the first murder committed in history. But under Abel, and the feet of Cain, there is more light which maybe is used to highlight the vibrancy of life that is about to be taken away; I never really thought of it in that way. Another thing that sticks out to me is the fact that you can’t see either of their faces. Maybe this is used to show how inhumane the taking of another life is. I believe he chose to depict the story as dark, faceless and primal (use of an animal jaw as murder weapon), to separate the murder from Christian religion. I think he is trying to emphasize the dark, evil nature of murder. His depiction differs from mine only in that he uses an animal jaw as a murder weapon. When I imagined the story I imagined Abel using a knife sheared from rock. I don’t think he changes what is supposed to be the intended message; the message that murder is wrong and evil and it is never right to take another life. The author is not so much limited in his medium than he is in his artistic back round. His artistic back round suggests that he is more interested in beautifully defining the human body in his paintings than anything else. He has a history of human portraits and that is evident in this painting. He spent more time defining the body of the two characters than he did in depicting the backround.