Re: Here is a Game of "Prints"

83
It looks like there is only one figure on the scales, to the left. I assume that's a soul, unless hard times have forced Michael to get a side job weighing babies at the local hospital. :))

I really can't make out what's happening to the right. I'm guessing the black blob is meant to be a little demon messin' with the scale and about to get his head chopped off.
When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.

Re: Here is a Game of "Prints"

86
I agree with RAH: the image represents the archangel Michael, weighting the souls of the dead.
I think there is a soul (a little man) in each side of the scales. I also think that the soul that weights more is the soul of a sinner, while the soul of a righteous man is lighter. But in the image, the lighter (less weighting) soul is darker. It would be interesting to know which colour it is :)

The sword is threatening because it represents the punishment that awaits the guilty.

Marco

Re: Here is a Game of "Prints"

88
Archangel Michael with his scales of Judgement containing the souls of the judged in the pans of the scales.

Though there seem to be figures on the scales they are hard to make out clearly.

Traditionally on one side you may have a soul with hands raised in prayer to suggest innocence and on the other a 'lump-like' monstrosity of a soul to represent the disfigurements of sin.

Sometimes Virgin Mary is on one side to 'counterbalance' a demon trying to pull down a scale on the other; the Virin uses her rosaries to weigh the soul down on the side of salvation, the demon pulls it down on the side of damnation - (thus it differs from Egyptian representations where the soul is weighed against the feather of truth where weight and thus 'down' represents sin - the signifance rests rather if it is 'down' on the side of salvation or down on the side of damnation - thus the figure that is down is not necessariy the damned figure here, it depends upon whether it is the side of damnation or salvation, which in the abscence of the virgin or demons to clarify is unclear - but the sword in the left hand may indicate the side of damnation).

sometimes Michael attacks demons trying to counterbalance the scales - here he seems to be in a stance of attack, perhaps to hold of (unshown) demons who try to counterweight the scales to damn the souls within them?

Re: Here is a Game of "Prints"

90
Okey dokey. So in both parts, "good" souls are "heavy." That's how it looks.

I read what Steve said about the soul falling to one "side" or another, but visually that doesn't make sense. If my lil' pitiful puny underdeveloped practically invisible soul is on one side of the scales, and it's the "side" that matters, does the angel decide which side to put my soul on? Or does the scale rotate, like a compass to magnetic north? Then it wouldn't be the "weighing" function that mattered, but the swivel.

Anyway. Good souls are heavy--my story, stickin' with it.

Also, this angel has a cross rather than a sword.
cron