‘Before the modern age we were protected from the force and immediacy of much human suffering by both distance and time.’ Photo: Landscape with Man Killed by a Snake, Nicolas Poussin, 1648
Compassion and suffering: Clive Ashwin has some lessons from the arts
‘The historical realities demanding compassion are constantly changing.’
by Clive Ashwin
15th April 2022
Landscape with Man Killed by a Snake, by the French seventeenth-century painter Nicolas Poussin (on display at the National Gallery, and pictured) tells a curious and macabre story. In the foreground a man lies dead at the edge of a lake, in the coils of a huge serpent. A second man, who has witnessed the scene, flees with his arms outstretched in horror to raise the alarm.
