The Ninth Hour 1978

Clarence Holbrook Carter's "The Ninth Hour" is a powerful painting made with strong lines and stark contrast. Imagine the artist mixing up that intense, almost angry, red—maybe a bit like mixing blood with fire. You can see how the crosses loom, dark and heavy, against this fiery ground. I wonder what Carter was thinking, setting those spears so deliberately? The way they tilt feels so full of accusation. And then that solar eclipse! I bet he had to wrestle with it, that sun-void, trying to capture the moment where light turns to dark, maybe even despair. Painters are always talking to each other across time. Think of Rothko's dark rectangles or the way Francis Bacon deals with the body—Carter's painting is part of this big, ongoing conversation. It's a reminder that art doesn't give you easy answers, but it does invite you to feel deeply and maybe even see the world in a new way.