LLEI D'ART 11

themes The Deadly Sins (II) Sloth Falling into the temptation of being able to live without doing anything is, at least understandable in the time we live in. In other times and under the close influence of religious beliefs, diligence was understood as a great virtue that overcame the natural, energy-saving tedium. Diligence was an attitude closely linked to love and charity that, by definition, is directed at someone else’s good and not exempt from the added effort of finding one’s own sustenance. Without any known cause (by illness), sloth is a natural tendency, understood as the craftiness to gain just enough to live on the kindness and/or weakness of your nearest and dearest. Seeing how people lazily wait around for someone else to do their most basic toilette is objectionable to those of us who have been shaped by Western Christian culture. How many times have plans been frustrated by the idle attitudes of those dedicated to procrastination or postponing things with the subsequent failure of their own will, the lack of the necessary push to action, by laziness. Peter Binsfeld (1540-1603), the archbishop of the German city of Trier and theologian, became famous in his region for being an astute witch-hunter. In his authorised list of demons associated with the deadly sins he wrote that the demon Belfegor tempted people by spreading discord and drew men to evil by promising them earthly goods with no effort. At the moment, the qualities most in demand in the world of work – and in relationships – are talent, courage and diligence. As such, the virtue of being available at all time and executing tasks carefully is highly valued. If, in addition, we include kindness – that is to say, doing acts out of uninterested love – we come to the model that should be followed in the advanced levels of today’s trends. Doing exercise, looking after the health of one’s being and the surroundings, expressing solidarity with the needy (charity or philanthropy), and taking part in sustainable development amongst other things implied being diligent and fighting laziness, tedium, inaction, indolence or simple sluggishness. It is being a modern or classical individual, depending on how you look at it. Leaving the repetitive image of the sofa that has invaded pop art or new realism painting in favour of the incipient dynamism is not a bad choice of topic to represent. Repeating comic characters like Homer Simpson, Garfield or Nobita from Doraemon as example of laziness is a bit old hat now; they distract us as entertainment but not as an artistic theme. Many artists that depicted laziness in their works – in addition to those already mentioned like Bosco, Brueghel, Pencz or Callot, we should mention others that have used biblical parables to illustrate it, such as the Parable of the Weeds. The story goes that while the peasant was sleeping at work, his neighbour sowed darnels (a kind of weed) instead of wheat. Abraham Bloemart (1564-1651), the Dutch Baroque painter, gives us an excellent representation of the story and incorporates the image of demons into it. The Parable of the Talents there is an explicit reference to sloth when the master reprimands the lazy serf for not making the most of the gold talent that he gave him before he left on his travels. By contrast, diligence as a virtue has been scarcely represented as an artistic theme in the past. I imagine that it was considered something normal out of either belief or frequency, and lacking in sufficient dramatic interest. In the second half of the 20 th century, with the arrival of leisure culture, the need for holidays, the well-earned rest after ‘hard’ office work, the worshipping of the ‘good life’, the image of characters lazing on the sofa became a pictorial and sculptural theme in American Pop Art (Hooper) or in European Realism (Freud). Surely we will soon be participants in the representation in the new trends of human behaviour: diligence as a way to personal success without historical dramatism. Gluttony The vice of eating and drinking to excess, also extendable to other inessential material goods that can be consumed (tobacco, drugs) or shown off (fashion) unnecessarily. Its corresponding virtue, temperance, is characterised by moderation in pleasures and seeks a balance in using goods. It means the dominion of will over instincts and maintains desires within the limits of honesty. This is also a current trend. After a period of time of excess-filled behaviour, the pendulum is swinging towards the other extreme: worshipping food control, physical exercise and rest. The individual who does not follow canonical rules in looking after themselves is not well-received by the more avant-garde community. A classic! We are tired of the excessive arbitrariness of doing what our body wants and now we need temperance. This is a fact that will mark a period in Western history – the appearance of a huge amount of young –and not so young– people who are exemplary in their food control, that neither drink nor smoke, do periodic exercise and do not readily accept the opposite i.e. gluttony. The levels of obesity from the 1980s onwards had reached record levels and was widely represented by contemporary artists like Freud or Botero, and excessive alcohol consumption was depicted by Degas or Picasso at the end of the 19 th century, such as in The Absinthe Drinkers . Similarly, the ravages of drug abuse was evidenced by Basquiat’s death. The demon for this is Beelzebub who, together with Satan and Lucifer, forms a triumvirate that rules over hell and its legions. He is represented with the body of a fly, hence his nickname, ‘The Lord of the Flies’; the title of a novel by the 1983 Literature Nobel-winning English writer William Golding. The author represents Beelzebub with the head of a wild boar on a stake in a forest opening while thousands of flies wait for it to rot. The pig/boar is another symbol used to represent gluttony; in addition Bacchus or Dionysus and his satyrs are often used as stereotypes of excess. Selenius, one of Dionysus’s satyrs, is frequently the drunken protagonist of many of Rubens’s paintings. Both Velázquez’s and Cornelius de Vos’s The Triumph of Bacchus are masterpieces narrating alcohol-addicted behaviour, or the sin of gluttony. Depictions of Roman bacchanalia are 113