On Emeric Marcier's “Segunda Tentação: o Suicídio”
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(Segunda Tentação: o Suicídio, 1983. Emeric Marcier. Oil on canvas. 73.00 cm × 72.00 cm)
What you see is no devotional painting. It is a trap. The image draws you in as though it offered consolation, yet what it delivers is despair. A man, and only a man (all too human!), stands on a pinnacle before a mute world. Down below, the ground. Behind him, religion. In front of him, the abyss. And a voice that whispers instead of shouting: “Jump.” This is no Devil. Here the tempter takes another form. Perhaps it has no form at all. It is an idea rather than a being: the idea that everything could end now. By choice, without necessity. Out of freedom. Here lies the poison: the end is in the subject's own hands. The temptation lies in making pain into a logical, rational, definitive argument, beyond simply yielding to it. There is something deeply modern, and therefore deeply despairing, about this. In the desert the devil offered bread. Here he offers consistency.
The central figure is Jesus, though it could be anyone. There is no halo, no miracle, no light. There is only a body, upright and composed, that seems to have been there a long time. God and doctrine are beside the point. What is at stake is whether to go on. The painting shows a moment of decision, beyond the crisis itself. The tension lies in the clear awareness that a single step could end it all. There is no one there to intervene. There is silence in the scene. A silence that offers no consolation. The world's silence when everything has already been said. The silence after prayer, after argument, after faith. Only freedom remains. And it weighs heavily. The height is symbolic, yes, though it is no allegory. There is no heaven above Jesus' head. There is only air. And the air is thin. It is hard to breathe in it. It is the air of an extreme lucidity that shows us that meaning is never given. If meaning exists, it must be sustained by force. Any meaning one has failed to win for oneself is a lie. The leap then appears to be the only honest way of dealing with the farce. And that is why staying takes more courage than jumping.
The title is stark. “O Suicídio” comes after “Segunda Tentação,” a phrase that describes and informs. There is no metaphor here. Marcier says what he means. The temptation is specifically the temptation to disappear. To do so as a philosophical gesture, with neither punishment nor revolt in mind. The painting asks, as Camus would, whether it is worth going on. And the answer it suggests lies in Christ's stillness, beyond anything in his face. He does not jump. Nor does he smile. It is a mistake to see this refusal as a triumph. There is no victory. Only refusal. And refusing to jump is a choice to suffer, quite apart from the idea of saving oneself. A choice to go on. With no promise of meaning, out of a kind of faithfulness that defies explanation. There is dignity in that, with no glory. There is seriousness. And a certain helplessness, too. Because the world does not answer. The gesture of staying where he is goes unanswered. There is no applause. Only more time.
Evil in this painting comes armed with arguments and wears no horns. It speaks as though it knows. It quotes Scripture. It justifies the leap with logic, exegesis, and piety. It is an evil that persuades. What makes it most dangerous is that it comes from within. The tempter's voice is the one that whispers when the soul is spent. It does not shout. It does not compel. It merely suggests. And its suggestion is simple: “You could put an end to this.” Jesus gives no answer. He remains standing. That is all. His refusal is mute. There is no heroism, no metaphor. Just a body that stays in time. A body that endures. And in this painting that is more sacred than any miracle. The painting is about being alive when everything tells you it is pointless. It is about going on even when you know there is no answer. Above all, it is about the loneliness of that decision. Because ultimately no one can make it for us.
Prof. (and student) Alexandre H. Reis
MORE ABOUT THIS PAINTER, WHO SPENT PART OF HIS LIFE IN BRAZIL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/V%C3%ADdeo_Ag%C3%AAncia_Nacional_07.webm