Paintings: "Salesman" and "Untitled"

I bought myself an extravagant gift the other day, well, last year really, but it took until now to possess them both since the one - an image I like to call "The Furies" - was stuck in the gallery's exhibition until the end.  The artist is Clive Barker, and they are both oil paintings.  The first one is called "Salesman" and  I think it is a representation of Avarice.

He looks great on my wall. 

I studied literature of the middle ages, and the Catholic church in the middle ages was both the church and state; they had absolute power; and it corrupted them; and thank God we now have a separation between them, a thing called the Reformation and for which we owe many brave lives.  Anyway, there was a religious figure at the time called The Pardoner.  He wasn't with the Church officially, but they knew about him unofficially.  He would sell pardons for sins.  In the epic comedy, Geoffrey Chaucer has a tale told by a Pardoner.  They wee the scum of the earth.  This picture reminds me of him; that or an encyclopedia salesman.  :)

 

Salesman by Clive Barker

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This next one does have a title.  I mean to get Clive to give me one.  I call it "The Furies" from Roman mythology.  The Furies were the goddesses of vengeance; they were the guardians of the law, and they stepped in when it failed.

It also looks pretty sweet on my wall.

Clive Barker is a great artist, both in the written word and in the visual arts.  I can't wait to collect more of his stuff.