Dimensions: support: 478 x 418 mm frame: 730 x 665 x 20 mm
Copyright: © The estate of William Roberts | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is William Roberts' "David Choosing the Three Days' Pestilence," held at the Tate. The monochromatic palette creates a somber atmosphere. I'm curious, what story do you think Roberts is trying to tell? Curator: Ah, Roberts. With his signature flattened figures, almost like architectural renderings of human suffering. Notice how the giant figure looms above? It feels almost dreamlike, a projection of David's inner turmoil. Editor: So, it's psychological as well as biblical? Curator: Precisely! Roberts often intertwined personal anxieties with grand historical themes. It’s like he’s asking: what weight of responsibility do we carry, even in our own lives? Editor: That really shifts my perspective. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure! Art is a mirror, reflecting our own questions back at us.
Comments
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/roberts-david-choosing-the-three-days-pestilence-t06668
Join the conversation
Join millions of artists and users on Artera today and experience the ultimate creative platform.
Roberts was a precocious draughtsman and became a student at the Slade School of Art at the early age of fifteen. Slade school students were given unusual Biblical subjects as exercises in imaginative figure drawings. The text behind this work comes from the Second Book of Samuel, Chapter 24. The drawing shows, in the foreground, Araunah kneeling before King David, who wears a hat. Araunah is offering to give the King his threshing floor and oxen, seen in the middle ground. King David insists on paying for the threshing floor in order to stop the angel of Pestilence, the giant in the background, from killing the people of Jerusalem. Gallery label, September 2004