Massacre Of The Innocents

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The piece is an oil on canvas done in 1640 by Francesco de Rosa, titled Massacre of the Innocents. The work was created to depict the biblical scene in which King Herod orders soldiers to kill the first born son of every family due to the rumors of a prophet, this prophet of course being Jesus. The piece portrays women holding infants and men holding daggers, a terrifying whirlwind of anger and hatred mixed with fear and confusion. The artist uses bold primaries to help accentuate the piece by creating triangle movement throughout the work. The elements of fear and terror are made clearer by the faces of the woman and the techniques used by Franceso de Rosa as he worked to establish movement, and mood. Each woman in the work is positioned differently, beginning in the let bottom most corner of the work, the eye is met with the image of a woman dressed in a bold red tunic holding a male infant in her arm while the other reaches high above her head. Separated by a mans legs the second woman appears to the right of the other, still on the bottom half of the canvas. This woman is slightly different in appearance to the other, her eyes are wide, her mouth ajar, head angled towards the ground, where a sallow colored infant lies, crimson blood spilling from its side. The second leg of the soldier is rested atop the bent knee of the third woman center canvas, adorned in yellow, she cradles another male infant, who appears to be torn between her arms and the arms of the soldier standing above her in a blue tunic. The soldier, whose legs separated the previous women, stares down at the child, one hand upon his arm, the other upon a dagger raised high above him, ready to plunge downward, a hint which is given by the second woman's bloody infant. Moving right still, a young child is seen in the foreground behind the third woman, peering from behind at the scene unfolding. At

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