The cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11: 7-9, KJV)
My series of images from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection on the theme of paradise lost and regained concludes this week with a charming mixed media work from Mississippi Visionary Artist Carl Dixon. He depicts the peaceful animal world of Isaiah 11, where a winningly wall-eyed lion takes primacy of place as the king of beasts, sheltering a lamb, while a leopard nuzzles a rabbit and a child sticks his hand safely into the den of “a cockatrice." The carved wood panel piece pays homage to The Peaceable Kingdom paintings of Pennsylvania Quaker Artist Edward Hicks, expressing the artist's longing to return to the original principles of William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to found a community in the New World guided by the Quaker ideal of “what love can do." (John Kohan)