Jericho

 From top: Jericho Rosales, originally uploaded by mlq3; 'Jericho' by Barnett Newman, 106 x 112 1/2", acrylic on canvas.

JERICHO is a work of Barnett Newman, one of the greatest, most influential modernists. Although his work looked like pure abstraction, titles indicated a preoccupation with myth, notably Jewish lore. Vir Heroicus Sublimis (Man, Heroic and Sublime) is a key piece in the collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. It is a huge canvas in blazing red with the artist's trademark vertical stripes (or "zips") running down at four intervals dividing the plane into almost-but-not-quite symmetrical patterns.

Jericho is most likely to refer to the ancient city in the Jordan plains, one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on earth. It is famous in the Christian and Jewish worlds for its walls being brought down by the trumpets and shouts of the Children of Israel under the leadership of Joshua after they emerged from 40 years in the wilderness after escaping Egypt. The story is told in the Old Testament in the Book of Joshua (1-6).

Before besieging the walled city, the Jews sent to spies who hid in the house of a prostitute ("harlot" in the King James version) named Rahab. She made them promise to spare her and her family when they took the city. The Jews killed everyone else in the city but spared her and hers and brought her to Israel.

And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
   But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her. (Joshua 6: 21-22)

 Newman's Jericho is "zipped" just a little off the middle, slightly to the right of the triangle's apex. It is then a little off kilter, so that it has innate instability, and at any moment might be knocked down.