Rapture
This is one of few paintings that I’ve done that is so sexually graphic. It is really only intended as an erotic piece, done mainly for amusement. Again, as in “Song of Solomon,” the lovers are in flight, although the subject is specifically sexual and the male figures are angels. The title, “Rapture,” may be taken as a pun, referring both to the Biblical rapture which will send people flying through the air, and to the feeling of orgasmic rapture.Although, as I’ve said, the painting does well enough on it’s own as a purely erotic piece, if I were to wax philosophical about it I would admit that I have been aware of a parallel between this subject and the passage of Genesis 6: 1 - 6, in which it is related that “sons of God” took human wives and had children by them. This short mention has been elaborated upon in the pseudipigraphal Book of Enoch, and also has a parallel in Greek mythology in it’s basic notion that the age of heroes and monsters was the result of breeding between gods and mortals.
(Paintings that feature people in flight or falling are "Song of Solomon," "Tristan and Isolde," "Icarus Descending," "Rapture," and "Ascension.")