Behind The Artworks: Avernus - Grievances (2024)

Jimmy came across an oil painting by August Friedrich Schenck from 1878 called “Anguish”. The painting itself has so many different emotional points. The natural but sometimes cruel cycle of life. A mother sheep protecting the dead body of her lamb, surrounded by hungry crows. The entire setting with the backdrop of a pale sky, an unforgiving cold winter depiction, and the mute color tones add to the layers of cold and bleak hopelessness.

When Jimmy presented this painting to the rest of us, it was an immediate “yes”!

The idea that it is not always about good and evil, right or wrong, but the inevitability that life continues, whether it’s compassionate or cruel.