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Moses Striking Water from the Rock

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Moses Striking Water from the Rock

Nowadays, the world is suffering from the outbreak of the pandemic of COVID-19. Most

people stay at home and are deprived of a simple joy of visiting places where they can meet the

need for beauty and art, such as museums, art galleries etc. Fortunately, people can still fulfil

such needs through the medium of their imagination and memory, especially when they had

visited the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. This place deserves the highest admiration as

it can draw attention of everyone – from the ordinary visitor to the experienced art lover. It

welcomes visitors from around the world and impresses them with the massive white building

with a colonnade designed in Ionic Order, beautiful gardens, breathtaking views of the city,

spacious and lit rooms and works of art from eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century which

include European drawings, sculptures, manuscripts alongside with Asian, American and

European photographs. There are more than fifteen thousand items in the museum, but you can

never be tired of observing them as all the exhibits are displayed conveniently so that the visitors

can look at them at any angle. One of the most beautiful drawings that cannot leave the true art

lover indifferent is ‘Moses Striking Water from the Rock’ by Jacob Jordaens. This work of art

was painted oil on canvas 51 × 106 in. during the period between 1645-1650. The artist made

perfect shading; he used the chiaroscuro with deep saturation. ‘Moses Striking Water from the

Rock’ impresses the visitors of the Museum due to its historical background, allegoric plot and

plenty of symbols.

The historical background of this drawing is the Bible story about Moses and his people

who wandered in Sinai Desert without water. Moses asked God for help and God told him to hit

the rock with his stuff. He did it and the water flew out of the rock giving the people the

opportunity to quench their thirst. They reaffirmed their faith in God and were rescued by a

miracle. This story can teach us that sincere faith can save anyone from a disaster.
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The allegoric plot of the picture consists of the main characters of the picture, who face

the difficult situation and deal with it. If someone wants to achieve his goal, he has to walk

through a lot of challenges. No challenges can prevent a true believer from achieving his goal.

The main character of the drawing is Moses, frozen in dramatic movement. A lot of people

watch his gestures with hope and trust as they are all tired after the years of wandering. They feel

relief and happiness, because their effort was not in vain. They stretch out hands and jars to

water showing their support to Moses and gratitude to God. The author brilliantly expresses the

emotions of people who finally received a gift from the higher power and are deeply grateful.

Not everyone who started the journey with Moses could stand the challenge, they went back and

died eventually. So, faith helps people overcome their difficulties.

There are some special symbols demonstrated by the artist in the picture. The water

which flows out of the rock is the symbol of life, water quenches the thirst as well as religion

satisfies the spiritual want of humanity. People of different age – children, adults, old men

symbolize the commitment to faith at any stage of human life, the old disabled man in the

background of the picture symbolizes the equality of everyone before the faith. The symbols are

inevitable elements of baroque style, they construct the subtext of the picture.

All things considered, though this picture was created in seventeenth century, its content

is still relevant in our time. People address higher powers at the moments when only faith can

save them. The difficulty of challenges on the road to the achievement of any goal can be

overcome due to the faith. In the context of current events, it can also help us to conquer the

pandemic, because the faith has always been the basis of any human victory.
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Appendix