The Wise and the Foolish

This piece was such a fun one to create! I had a long frame on hand and thought, why not try something with the feel of a comic strip? That format ended up being the perfect canvas for a story I found intriguing: the parable of the Five Foolish Virgins from the Gospel of Matthew.

In the parable, ten virgins await the arrival of a bridegroom for a wedding. Five wise virgins bring extra oil for their lamps, while five foolish ones don’t. When the bridegroom finally comes, the unprepared women scramble to buy more oil and, in the process, miss the wedding feast. The story has long been read as an allegory: the wise virgins represent the righteous, prepared for heaven; the foolish, those who lived unvirtuous lives and were shut out when the time came.

For my version, though, I couldn’t help but put a playful twist on it. Instead of painting the foolish as tragic or careless, I imagined them as the ones actually enjoying themselves, while the wise stand off to the side, noses turned up in judgment.

At 30x15 inches, this was my largest drawing at the time!

Sometimes, I think the "foolish" have more to teach us than the wise...

The parable of the wise and foolish virgins, by Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow 1842