User:Fifat/The King of Kings (2012 painting)

The King of Kings is an oil painting from 2011–2012 by the German painter Gerd Mosbach. The history painting depicts the death of Muammar Gaddafi, the ruler of Libya.

Background
On 21 October 2011, Gaddafi was first taken prisoner during the Battle of Sirte and was then killed on the same day under unclarified circumstances by a gunshot to the head.

Gaddafi's corpse was brought to Misrata on the same day and was publicly displayed until 24 October in a refrigerated former warehouse, the "Afrika Market" – only dressed with a trouser on a mattress on the floor. The gawkers, some of whom had travelled and waited at length – posted numerous snapshots and videos on the Internet. Many of the photographs are selfies in which the visitors squated next to the corpse and smile and raise their fingers in a victory sign. A visitor described the scene: "God made the pharaoh as an example to the others. If he had been a good man, we would have buried him. But he chose this destiny for himself".

“The King of Kings” was Gaddafi’s honorary title which was bestowed upon him in August 2008 by traditional African leaders and which was conferred upon him in a coronation ceremony in the following year in Addis Ababa.

Description
The painting, measuring 180 x 230 cm, depicts in the foreground the already-dead Gaddafi, appearing Christ-like and portrayed in outsized proportion, as he is carried off the stage of world history while the closing travellers suggest the end of the performance. Gaddafi’s mistreated body is depicted realistically in keeping with the last photographs in which he was seen in the refrigerated warehouse in Misrata. The painting expresses criticism of the handling of the dead Gaddafi in violation of human dignity both in its title as well as with intentional iconographic elements of older depictions of the entombment of Christ as by Raphael or Friedrich Overbeck. In his work “The Death of Marat” from 1793, Jacques-Louis David had already seized upon the depiction of the dead Christ in Michelangelo’s Pietà and portrayed Jean-Paul Marat with a long arm hanging downward – also used by Michelangelo – as a martyr of the French Revolution.

With Mosbach, the dead man only appears Christ-like at first glance; the corpse is not borne away in a shroud, but instead, is “disposed of” in a commercial tarpaulin from a hardware store. In addition, from the perspective of the painting, he is not carried toward the right like Christ is usually depicted, but instead, toward the left. In Christian iconography, the left side is namely the side of evil. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations. And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left” (Matthew 25: 31-33). Gaddafi’s hair is also suggestive of ram horns.

A rich panoply of figures is depicted behind Gaddafi. In the central section, the group of severely-wounded victors surrounds Gaddafi at the left. One of the victors is giving a victory sign – like many of the visitors in the refrigerated warehouse in which Gaddafi was displayed. He is also wearing a baseball cap, alluding to the support of the Americans for the insurgents.

In the right portion of the central section, the Amazonian Guard bids farewell to Gaddafi; the group makes one think of the weeping women in Raphael’s ″Deposition”. The central primary figure wears her blouse only loosely knotted, alluding to Gaddafi’s abuse of members of the guard.

In the background on the left, dim figures of the French Republican Guard can be perceived; the Republican Guard supplies the guard of honour for guests of state in France, and Gaddafi walked through it in 2007 during his visit in Paris when he was received by President Sarkozy in the Élysée Palace. This group refers to the formerly close relationship between France and the dictator. In the middle, more sharply portrayed, two soldiers of the French Foreign Legion can be seen. These depict the transformation of the earlier partner into an enemy of war. One of the two soldiers blows the trumpet to attack, and the other already sounds the trombone of the Last Judgment – "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trombone of God." (1 Corinthians 15: 51-52)

Through the oval composition similar to Overbeck's Entombment of Christ all of the figures in the painting are connected to one another and to the dead man.

The shoulder mark of the bodyguard in front is beginning to disintegrate into its individual components as a symbol of the complete collapse of Gaddafi’s rule in Libya. The pre-Gaddafi flag of Libya, readopted in the aftermath of the civil war, waves in the background. In contrast, the Quran, which still lies on the ground, emerges like a jack-in-the-box from a carton, alluding to the simultaneous strengthening of Islam. The participants in the scene will see the Quran only when Gaddafi has been removed. Only the viewer from the Western world who is uninitiated in Arabia would regard the Quran as being portrayed comprehensibly; from the perspective of the knowing viewer, it is standing “on its head”, since in contrast to Latin script, Arabic script is read from right to left and the book is to be read from back to front. This is a reference to the Islamic orientation of post-revolutionary Libya which is becoming apparent, and as a result of which Sharia law was imposed as the basis for all legislation (not without the prior active support of ″The Great Satan″, the United States, as betrayed by the pointed ear of the wearer of the baseball cap). Mosbach’s painting is composed with three sources of light. The corpse of Gaddafi is illuminated from the left-hand side as though by a stage spotlight directed toward it. The artist makes use of chiaroscuro to make the body of the dead man appear plastic and to emphasize the drama of the moment with the shadows in the picture. In the background of the painting, luminous yellow is surrounded by blue, as though the appearance of the judge of the world in his aureole from Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment is imminent. A third, hidden, source of light glows up from the depths of the underworld and is reflected in a barely-noticeable manner by the tarpaulin, the hand with the victory sign and and the brim of the baseball cap. This is the reflection of the lake of fire into which Gaddafi will be thrown. "Then Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.″ (Revelation 20: 14-15)