Triptych – ‘The Weighing of the Souls’ – by Michael Madden

Local painter, sculptor, campaigner and Hastings resident, Michael Madden, talks with HOT’s Chandra Masoliver about his remarkable new artwork, a triptych in a carved oak frame.

CM: I love this painting, it’s powerful, sad and very beautiful. The animals look directly at us, as conscious as humans, their halos shining. They are grave, with a medieval stillness, like icons. Why did you paint this picture?

MM: Thanks. It’s about global warming but also about human attitudes to animals in general. I finished it under lockdown and have changed it a bit since.

Some time ago I watched a shocking news feature, in which a British ‘hunter’ shot a lion dead. I couldn’t believe people were allowed to kill endangered wild animals, and according to the Independent they still are:

Britain has a high number of lion-killing men, but some women also like to do it. Although Johnson promised to ban the importation of hunting trophies in his election manifesto, he has since stalled the ban. I think it’s immoral, and that, as Voltaire said, “God is the soul of animals”.

CM: What do you think he meant by that?

MM: I think he meant that we share a larger soul with them. It’s from a short essay he wrote in 1764, questioning the conventional belief of his time, that only humans have souls, and that animals don’t feel or learn. Of course, now we know that mammals feel loss and pain and also dream.

CM: OK, go on….

MM: We humans are just fellow mammals, not Gods and not messengers of Gods. But too few of us see them as our relatives. As Chief Seattle said, if we let wild animals die out, then we will suffer from “a great loneliness of the spirit”.

CM: You obviously feel strongly about this. Why have you called your picture: ‘The Weighing of the Souls’? Also, I don’t understand all the visual references, so could you explain?

MM: I’ve painted it in the form of an early renaissance religious triptych – a bit like an icon, as you say. I don’t have a style; I like to get into the style of different eras. But it is an original work and I’ve given it a certain quality. I’ve chosen to paint it like a ‘Last Judgement’, but with the mammals judging us. So I’ve reversed the Christian iconography to show that animals are just as spiritual, if not more, than we are.

The polar bear is weighing a human soul against a feather. It’s an ancient Egyptian idea – if the human soul weighs more or less than the feather, then the soul is damned and goes to the Underworld. In Egyptian and medieval Christian iconography, the human soul was depicted as a tiny human form. I’ve chosen to use the figure of a tiny old king, who is pointlessly offering the polar bear his crown and, hoping to save himself. I also used this reversal in scale to underline how unimportant we are.

 

 

The side panels feature a wolf and a puma as angels with haloes. According to ancient beliefs, angels are messengers – intermediaries between God and Man. They’re writing down the humans’ sins in books, and the humans are depicted in a lifeboat which they’ve been forced to take because the land is threatened by the global warming disasters they have created – fires, floods, melting icecaps and mountain-caps, tornadoes etc.

Our enormous population and our obsession with human material wealth has upset the miraculous balance of Nature. We have blindly used Nature as a free resource but given nothing back. We mostly turn natural beauty into ugly waste.

 

 

CM: What is your hope for the painting?

MM: I just want it it to be seen. It’s not an optimistic picture and it’s moralistic, so I doubt if it could sell to an individual; and it’s over five feet high and really heavy. But I’m planning to have some smaller prints made, which will fold in the way the frame does, and they might sell. If I did sell it to an individual, l’d give a sizeable portion to the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace or Greta Thunberg, because it’s all so urgent.

As James Lovelock says (and David Attenborough), global warming has already passed the tipping point and we have to act immediately to save ourselves and the mammal kingdom. But our economy and political system are still focused on short-term free-market profits, and for less and less people.

It’s like a Bond movie scenario. Brexit will be a disaster, but our government is in the pockets of mad people who do handshakes with billionaires with massive business interests. They are only out for themselves. Mark Zuckerberg for instance is worth over 88 billion dollars, but still wants more, and allows people to put lies on Facebook, which interfere with democracy. We have to take back control from them to stand any chance of saving ourselves and other mammals. But would people give up Facebook? I doubt it.

The good news is that Covid-19 may force an ending to the free market, so I’m a bit more hopeful. The government and the few idiots who seek private power cannot be trusted with our best interests.

CM: If you do sell this painting, wouldn’t you rather it went to where lots of people could see it, rather than a private house?

MM: Definitely. I believe good visual art can change minds. I make political and environmental work as a way of expressing concerns that many people have, but in an original way; but I don’t think I’m special just because I paint. I’ve given it up twice and returned to it twice, because I love it. In fact I find the ‘art world’ ridiculous because some people take themselves so seriously. Of course there are some very good and very humble people out there who do better work than me. I just try to do my best.

CM: How much would you like for it?

MM: I’ don’t know. It would depend on who made the offer. I’ve never really set out to paint pictures for money, although I’ve sold a few. I made money with murals, decorative schemes, carvings and restoration. Anyway, in 2010, the Designers and Artists Copyright Society published research and found that the average ‘fine artist’ earns £10,000 a year – that’s under the minimum wage. So ‘fine art’ tends to be for the financially free. I’m retired now and I only ever did it in my spare time.

CM: OK thanks for this Michael. Can you suggest any way for readers to help stop the slaughter of lions?

MM: Yes, here’s a petition they can sign:

https://www.bornfree.org.uk/trophy-hunting

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