this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
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They say “traditional art”, but they mean “shut up and paint, with no subversive messages hidden”.
But the thing is, the time period they consider “traditional art” is chock full of artists being told to “shut up and paint”, and not appreciating that very much and deciding to sneak subversive messages into their works, knowing that their patrons would be too dumb to catch on.
In effect, they’re saying “can we go back to a time when I didn’t understand that you thought I was dumb?”
Shall we talk about Caravaggio? Most notably Basket of fruit?
He was an atheist sneaking anti-church messages in his church-bought paintings. Iirc he got found out a couple of times and people weren’t super happy if being played for fools.
I had to look it up; what a beautiful painting!
From the outset it looks quite normal and enticing but on further examination:
Sorry for the wall of text but I found this fascinating, also serves a great alt text (which I don't know how to add with my client) or for a screen reader
For the symbology (of which I remember only parts)
The apple is a symbol of Christ, so have a worm hole undercuts Christ himself.
The wine grapes are symbol of the resurrection, but they are sick.
The figs… maybe you can guess? Another Christian symbol, looking sickly and overshadowed.
The basket itself is a symbol of the plenty that God bestowed mankind, and is overhanging the side of the table, ready to fall.
This painting metaphorically says “there is no god, and definitely no Christian God”
Thanks for posting the picture, I still haven’t figured out how to do it!