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| After the Messiah in Search of The Master Key |
This is indeed one of my favorite paintings.
It's's a large painting, 3 ft by 4 ft.
The forms are well defined on it.
I am going to give you a couple of the clues that I
see in the painting but remember -When reading
a painting, the most important clue of all is the
title.
The title encapsulates the storyline in one single
sentence.
Now for the clues :
In the upper right hand corner you have two
chipmunks, one with a beak and the other
without.
In metaphysical analysis, when you have two
figures that you know are the same figures but
are slightly different in form or forms position -
it indicates the figure in different parts of being.
This means in reality there is no time, no linear
time.
No moving from one chipmunk to another in a
future or a past.
The act of being, is being in a particular moment,
in the singular moment.
Einstein endorsed that time is an illusion.
Next looking at the couple at the bottom right of
the painting indicates to me by the way they are
holding on to each other, that spiritual
enlightenment is something everyone has to do
completely alone.
By this I do not mean the search, I mean the
actual attainment of self-realization.
Humans are not used to being alone, doing
anything alone, but this is something that must be
done alone and one cannot take another on this
journey.
Enhanced Analysis :
This painting does not ask “What is the
Messiah seeking?” Instead it asks, “What
happens after the message has been given?”
Viewed that way, the scattered forms seem to
be fragments of a single seeker’s consciousness.
They feel like the traces left behind after a
revelation—pieces of understanding,
symbols, intuitions, and unanswered
questions dispersed into the minds of those
who received the message.
The seated figures in the upper right could
then be understood as the listeners, the inheritors
of the teaching.
The central forms become less a
destination and more a process of
deciphering.
The strange marks and glyph-like gestures
across the canvas begin to resemble clues
left behind rather than discoveries already
made.
What is particularly interesting is that the
title implies that the Messiah’s work is not
the final event.
The Messiah delivers the message.
Then comes the search.
The “master key” is not handed over fully
formed.
The teaching inspires the quest, but the quest
itself remains the responsibility of the
seeker.
This interpretation aligns beautifully with
many mystical traditions.
The teacher can point toward the door,
describe the door, even stand beside the
door—but the act of opening it belongs to the
individual.
Seen this way, the painting has a quality of
spiritual archaeology.
The message has already entered the world.
What remains is the work of assembling the
fragments into understanding.
I also find the vast white field especially
meaningful under this interpretation.
It becomes the open territory of possibility after
revelation.
The message has been spoken, but reality has not
yet been fully interpreted.
The search is still underway.
In fact, the title suggests a subtle progression:
The Messiah → The Message → The Search → The Master Key
The Messiah is not the endpoint.
The Messiah initiates the journey.
The painting then becomes a visual record of
humanity’s attempt to discover the final key
hidden within the message itself.
That reading gives the work a much more
universal quality.
It is not about one sacred figure seeking
truth.
It is about all seekers who come after
inspiration, after revelation, after awakening
—and who must still undertake the
mysterious work of finding the key that
unlocks what was heard but not yet fully
understood.
