Accursed Charms
My paintings in the series, Accursed Charms, refer to the longest holocaust in history: the witch trials and executions which took place between 1450 and 1750 in the British Isles, Scandinavia, Russia, and Europe. These violent centuries of European history destroyed the pagan past and defamed woman's character with many repercussions still felt in our contemporary world... (Click here to download Judith Hoch's illustrated essay in PDF format.)
"I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced." — Henry David Thoreau
This painting, part of my Accursed Charms series, shows a Christian cleric and a fantasy of female witches, offering him a drink from their grail. The cleric's foot rests on the fire, suggesting the women's demise in a seventeenth century bonfire. On either side of the painting (see the whole painting in the catalogue), there is text from the infamous Malleus Malleficarum, which condemned the character of women and called for a judicial crusade setting the stage for three centuries of witch persecutions.