The Tenth Triad 28-29-30: The Wedding at Cana

This is a composition built on several semi-circles. There are two central circles, one of which surrounds the jars and another which reveals the two principal characters of the work, Christ and the Holy Virgin.

There is a crowd stretching to infinity for a wedding that is cosmic and eternal and without end.

Under the amphora is a bay, the Bay of Jounieh, which takes its place in the whole, with its fishermen and their little craft. From the jars there pours out light spreading over the whole work, to give a mystical and sacred effect. Close to his Holy Mother, Christ blesses and performs a miracle, his first in the sanctified land of Lebanon. (John 2:1-11)

In the two lower corners, two flower-filled spaces take part in the event. At the tables that stretch till lost in the distance there are the guests, for all who have been invited to the wedding are also “spouses” by their relation to Mary.

All is in movement, nothing is inert, for even those who are seated are animated and alive, while others fill the jars with water and from them serve the miraculous wine.

The colors are a hymn to gaiety, to happiness, shades of blue, rose and white all bathed in light and love. The matter is rich and alive, with nothing artificial. Here all is prayer, enchantment and poetry, a great celestial feast dominated by Jesus and Mary at the center.

The Eleventh Triad 31-32-33: The Meal with Levy

Here is a meal, a meeting, a great collective communion, but one which is unlike all others, for the guest of honor is the Messiah himself.

The setting is a great hall, a palace, an interior space where one sees in the background three arcades, a composition in three rectangles and six diagonals. In the center are the Christ, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalen and their followers being welcomed by Levy and his family. Some children surround the Messiah, while a large crowd is seated at table. Some pots of flowers fill the foreground, mottled with shades of rose, blue, salmon and ochre, harmoniously arranged and calling for no comment. The work holds you, and as you circulate inside it, it explodes with life while at the same time giving you a feeling of intimacy.

But no Scribes or Pharisees take part, for they consider the scene distasteful and unbecoming – I have come to give joy to the oppressed… (Matthew 9: 9-150)

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