RIBS

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

John 1:29

Still life has been a widely used genre in the History of Art, many of them probably being the protagonists of our kitchen walls, next to a Last Supper- in the case of Catholic homes. Being present in the chronology and the straight line with which temporality is traditionally determined, still life as a genre has had ostentation as the central point of relevance. An exhibition in which the freshness and vanity of life that remains paused inked in oil is represented, although what remains outside the frame will continue to decompose. Curious is the case of two still life(s) with a difference of 200 years, which I ran into without wanting to look for either of them.

Francisco de Zurbarán and his namesake Francisco de Goya shared a concept in coexistence that apparently did not arise from the same idea.

This is what you are to offer on the altar regularly each day: two lambs a year old. Offer one in the morning and the other at twilight.

Exodus 29: 38,39

In 1640, Francisco de Zurbarán painted the Lamb of God in the work Agnus Dei, legs bound in a gloomy scene, cold and soaked in loneliness that broke with the cheerful and vain character of the previous still life(s) Although in anterior paintings, dead animals were shown, Zurbarán corrupts the genre by snatching the freedom of the animal that will symbolically grant us true forgiveness, presenting something never seen before, a daring image of a sacrifice other than crucifixion. The lamb stands out for being the first and only true level in the painting, capturing as much light as possible, understood from its sacralized entity Martyred and fully delivered, the animal remains alive before a genre that promises its death, nature, detained condemned to die.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

Isaiah 53:7

In 1804 (c.a) Francisco de Goya painted Pieces of Ram, most probably attributed to the deadly theme of the Spanish War of Independence in the second decade of the 17th century. A still life that is just as gloomy and dismal, with a touch of the macabre that the previous one lacks, probably softened by the animal's fur. An already dead ram, decapitated and skinned, ready to be sold by the kilo. There is a theory that this same animal symbolizes the human bodies that were deprived of life during the war. What is the human without the animal, if they are not one? Francisco de Goya does not use the Ram as a living image of the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, much less seems to approach religious themes, but rather paints a scene of still life. Truly dead.

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Revelation 5:6

I have come across both paintings, separated by a historical distance of 200 years, and many wars. A lot of daring and biblical understanding between them and me. The works are sisters to each other, they seem to have been a mirror of the other, a time machine that reminds us of the perishable meat that has become a vehicle for our bones.

What would our bones be without meat?