Angel or devil what weighs in the scales is profoundly human: two anonymous skulls, eyes obscured, identities erased by the scales of justice as much as the grave. Who might they be that such iconic figures should wrestle for their possession? The playful serpent in eye-catching teal and coral stripes suggests an Edenic setting, with the watchful purple eye hovering above as all-seeing God. Amorphous green forms in the star-studded night sky might be foreboding storm clouds or perhaps the two trees of which one’s fruit was permitted, the other forbidden. Between them this contest unfolds with an angel holding the scale, and a devil tipping them, gripping one basket and lifting it with a clawed foot. But was there ever the possibility of fair trial in this barbed place where even the landscape erupts with points, each a potential fulcrum for the lever on which life balances precariously. Even that God’s eye is bedecked in fang-wings, radiating like eyelashes or arms? And the angel, too, is crowned with an aureole punctured by spiked rays. Who is reckless here—the two vying for blame on the scales or those who hold them? The devil cares, wresting blame from one to implicate the other.
Angel or devil what weighs in the scales is profoundly human: two anonymous skulls, eyes obscured, identities erased by the scales of justice as much as the grave. Who might they be that such iconic figures should wrestle for their possession? The playful serpent in eye-catching teal and coral stripes suggests an Edenic setting, with the watchful purple eye hovering above as all-seeing God. Amorphous green forms in the star-studded night sky might be foreboding storm clouds or perhaps the two trees of which one’s fruit was permitted, the other forbidden. Between them this contest unfolds with an angel holding the scale, and a devil tipping them, gripping one basket and lifting it with a clawed foot. But was there ever the possibility of fair trial in this barbed place where even the landscape erupts with points, each a potential fulcrum for the lever on which life balances precariously. Even that God’s eye is bedecked in fang-wings, radiating like eyelashes or arms? And the angel, too, is crowned with an aureole punctured by spiked rays. Who is reckless here—the two vying for blame on the scales or those who hold them? The devil cares, wresting blame from one to implicate the other.