Beating a Dead Horse

Ok. The above bookpainting is actually pretty old- probably about 6 or 7 years. I found it in my closet while cleaning and thought I’d post it, since it's inspired by Crime and Punishment.

Even though I’m sure everyone has been forced to read (or sparknote) C&P at some point in your lives, I’ll give a (really) short synopsis anyway:

Main character (Raskolnikov) is fed up with the way people are treated. He believes that God’s law is greater than man’s law- so if he breaks man’s law but it’s cool with God, then he can’t really get in trouble. So he decides to kill this old lady that’s screwing everyone over. Once he does, he starts to feel guilty about it and ultimately gets arrested because this new philosophy of his isn’t how real life works.

To the sketch: Raskolnikov has a dream that he’s a young boy that watches a man beat his horse to death in the middle of town. None of the townspeople care about the horse or the beating or Raskolnikov’s tiny protests. Raskolnikov is heartbroken over the horse’s death and everyone else goes on their way. The horse is HUGE, I know- The disproportionate size is supposed to symbolize the gravity of what the horse represents to the dreamer. Just go with it.

I’ve heard this dream explained a number of times. Raskolnikov = Raskolnikov, Horse = his new way of life, Man = his Guilt, townspeople = cops/townspeople. I’ve also heard it analyzed in more detail as Raskolnikov = 12 apostles, Horse = Christ, Man = Romans, Townspeople = Jews, etc. Or you can combine the two analyses and tie everything together. Yay for reading between the lines.

Whichever way you look at it…it was still a pretty intense dream with some very imaginative visual potential.