Claudia and i love this simple painting.
No, Max didn't paint it... its by the dutch artist Kees de Kort and depicts the very moment that a blind man has his vision miraculously restored.
The well-known story is described in the 10th chapter of Mark's gospel. Jesus is travelling from A to B and this guy called Bartimaeus happened to be sitting/begging at the roadside.
He was blind. His remaining senses sharpened to survive his poverty and total darkness, told him Jesus was coming. In his desperation to be noticed amid the noisy crowd, Bartimaeus performs the bible's first recorded tantrum. It worked and Jesus stopped.
Seconds later Bartimaeus can see. There was no long sermon, no credentials checked and no strings attached. This guy knew what he wanted and Jesus simply gave it to him there and then. It was as random as it was kind.
Bartimaeus was desperate, but he wasn't short of courage either. The vast crowd, always hungry for special effects, would have gone fiendishly quiet. He must have felt 100's of curious eyes on him, but he still dared himself to ask for the impossible.
The painting freezes the moment that followed. His eyes are filled with light for the first time. The colours are beautifully overwhelming. His cheeks are flushed with emotion, he's speechless. Having just won a sense, he's temporarily lost another.
Had he really expected it? who knows, but there were a few more followers on the road to Jerusalem that afternoon, that's for sure.
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