The Confession

What story does this captivating picture tell us... or tries to keep behind? The longer you look at it, the harder to tell.

What is hidden in those thick shadows – unbearable guilt and shame, pain and despair? Or, rather, convulsive anger, scorn and condemnation? Is it beauty, pure and innocent, full of sympathy and understanding, sitting in the white robe, like an angel spreading its wings? Or is it regret and suffering that makes this beauty so spiritual?

We cannot know for sure, and neither can critics of art, for more than a hundred years… The most authoritative figures of the time claimed it was a story of the “fallen woman”. While others doubted “But is it really?.. Who is the sinner and who’s the judge?"

On one hand or another, going beyond the problems of “modern” marriage and actual story, it feels as if you’re looking at the complicated picture of your soul or that of the essence of human being, painted by the most talented Creator. Here it is so difficult to tell what’s white and what’s black, here it’s equally impossible to condemn as well as fully justify.