“Enigma” by Gustave Dore.

 

The word "enigma" is defined as a mystery, secret or closed book. It can also be described as a puzzle, a problem requiring solving. An enigma is something that baffles understanding and can never be explained: a secret that will remain a secret no matter how hard we attempt to discover, define or describe… an actual unsolvable event or thing.

This has to be one of my favorite drawings of all time. What kind of man could actually create something so enticing, odd, and somehow "real," calling the work: Enigma?

This drawing by Gustave Dore is one of those works of art where one can sit and look for hours, continuing to discover new aspects, new things that are never seen before.

For me, the painting somehow makes "sense" but on a very abstract "imaginative" level.

So what is Dore's "Enigma" showing us?

The scene is a battlefield as dead soldiers lie everywhere. In the background, smoke fills the air giving the impression of enormous fires continuing to rage across the land…

This particular battle was fierce, a no holds barred situation of desperation, as if the victor will Rule… ALL.

This is not the beginning of the battle but its end.

The central focus of the drawing is of two strange beings: a winged character, perhaps an angel, and a sphinx, a "man" with the body of a lion, appear to be embracing or the winged one asking the sphinx for mercy, begging for a truce because everything is destroyed…nothing is left to rule - a battle in heaven between Good and Evil; any interpretation is possible, however, the drawing remains a magnificent example of the human beings capacity for imagination and representing that imagination in a concrete form, an image, sharing this vision with the rest of us.

Art in the truest sense of the word. ( Left click on image for better view)

Gustave Dore's "Enigma" is currently housed at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.