Appleton Museum Report: 'The Judgement Of Solomon'

Appleton Museum Report

On September the 26th, as I walked the halls of the Appleton museum, I was overwhelmed at the sheer number of cultural significant works of art. With so many to choose from it was hard to settle on just four from the different categories to write about. The four works that follow are just a hand full of the art that really caught my interest.

1. “The Judgement of Solomon”, c. 1850, by Joseph Von Severdonck, Belgian, 1819 – 1905

This is an oil painting on canvas depicting chapter 3 verses 16 - 18 from 1st Kings of the Christian Bible. It is in this story that King Solomon is confronted with two prostitute mothers who are in dispute over who’s child is dead and who’s is still alive. In all of his wisdom he decides to divide the living child between the two women proving the “ownership” of both the dead child and the one that is alive when the true mother of the living child wanting the child to be spared gives it to the other mother. If you did not know this story and you were just to gaze upon this painting for its artistic value it would seem that it was

To me the ivy represented the urbanization of the southern farms and woodlands. The woman however, is being torn by her southern heritage and an ever changing world around her. This picture reminded me of how I felt revisiting the neighborhood that I grew up in a few years ago. Behind my parent’s old house and over an ivy covered fence there used to be wooded farm land that I spent endless summers exploring and having grand adventures with family and friends. However about 8 years ago someone decided to expand a subdivision in to this wooded farmland and now instead of tall hay fields, cow and forest there are manicured lawns with seemingly endless pavement drives, poorly constructed homes and lamp