The MET Reflection Journal

            As far as museums go the MET is one of the best I've been too even though this is my second time visiting the MET I was still very much astonished of the artwork that was being held in display there each piece having their own story to tell. While walking around the MET one piece really caught my attention out of all of them but it wasn't just one painting rather 7 that go together. The Seven Deadly Sins were the piece of art which gained my interest almost right away due to the way the artist painted to portray each of these individual sins. The sins include from left to right Lust, Pride, Envy, Anger, Avarice(Greed), Sloth, and Gluttony and each of them were painted so creatively that the caught my attention with haste. Lust is the desire of the human body, Pride is the excessive belief in ones achievement and abilities, Envy is the desire to have what anyone else has no matter what it is, Anger is a strong feeling of hostility, Avarice is the desire for materialistic objects, Sloth is the feeling of laziness in which you avoid work, and last but not least is Gluttony which is the excess of eating.
            The artist who painted The Seven Deadly Sins was Paul Cadmus an American who was born in 1904 and died on 1999. The Seven Deadly Sins are virtually associated with religion such as Christianity they are believed to be the most deadly and evil thing which can be done. Each of these paintings were made actually quite differently Lust, Envy, Anger, and Sloth were created with Egg tempera on Masonite while Gluttony and Avarice were made with Egg tempera on cardboard and finally Pride was made with Egg tempera on gessoed linen over Masonite which is quite different from how the others were created. The time the paintings were made vary but they were all mainly created during the 1940's.
            Each painting utilizes a specific color to represent something involved with the sin. Lust uses a shade of pink in order to symbolize the desire of the body. Pride uses blue as well as has a giant head to represent ego. Envy uses yellow probably to represent the need to have what others have. Anger uses red to display rage and fury. Greed uses dark colors and contains a spider of some sort gathering stuff along the wall no matter what it is to display the need to have everything. Sloth uses a gray color shade and contains a rotting corpse to represent a level of laziness to where death does not even cause its movement. Gluttony just contains a blob to represent the excess of eating. The paintings hardly contained any negative space as the artist made use of all the space available and the way the paintings were displayed was to make sure each sin was viewed clearly to represent each of their importance.