“Enigma” by Gustave Dore.

The word “enigma” is defined as a mystery, secret or closed book. It can also be defined as a puzzle, a problem, something that requires solving. An enigma is something that baffles understanding and can never be explained: a secret that will remain a secret no matter how hard we attempt to discover, define or explain…a true unsolvable event or thing.

This has to be one of my favourite drawings of all time. What kind of man could actually create something so enticing, odd and somehow “real” calling the work: Enigma?

This drawing by Gustave Dore is one of those work’s of art where one can sit and look at for hours, continuing to discover new aspects, new things never seen before.

For me, at least, the painting somehow makes “sense” but on a very abstract “imaginative” level.

So what is Dore’s “Enigma” showing us?

The scene is a battle field as dead soldiers lie everywhere. In the background, smoke fills the air giving the impression of enormous fires continuing to rage across the land…

This particular battle was fierce, a no holds bard situation of desperation, as if the victor’s will Rule… ALL.

This is not the beginning of the battle but its end.

The central focus of the drawing is of two strange beings: a winged character, perhaps and angel, and a sphinx, a “man” with the body of a lion, appear to be embracing or the winged one asking the sphinx for mercy, begging for a truce, because everything is destroyed…nothing is left to rule - a battle in heaven between Good and Evil; any interpretation is possible, however the drawing remains a magnificent example of the human beings capacity for imagination and representing that imagination in a concrete form, an image, sharing this vision with the rest of us.

Art in the truest sense of the word. ( Left click on image for better view)

Gustave Dore’s “Enigma” is currently housed at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.