Famine (1904)

John Charles Dollman’s 1904 Famine is one of the most evocative paintings I have seen, and hangs at Salford Gallery. He evidently specialised in painting highly dramatic scenes, often featuring animals. Exhibited at the Royal Academy, he claimed to have struggled to paint the wolves as the subjects he chose from the local the zoo were, ironically, over fed. 

Famine is an appalling prospect, and one from which the West’s great resources have managed to shield us for over a century, though the last World War but this to the test. Sadly, they still affect various places around the globe, and are likely to characterise the ‘times of the end’ before Christ returns. Yet Dollman was not depicting shortages of essential foodstuffs, even though the century into which he was born witnessed a great famine within the British Isles. That shrouded figure of Death and the hungry battalion of crows and wolves which he apparently commands, portrayed the famine of the human spirit, or neglect of the soul. It is horribly ironic that many who over-eat and inflate their bodies are demonstrating the malnutrition of their inner selves. Those who eat, drink and are found merry are filling their inner voids with external comforts, which they promptly excrete the other end, for they are unable to retain what little pleasure it brought.

Even the precious farmers whose diligence and industry keep our shops stocked and our bellies filled, cannot satisfy our souls. Truly, there is a famine stalking Great Britain: a lethal poverty of hope, emptiness, weakness and joy. Only Christ, the Bread of Life, can offer us what we need, and give us that for which we were created.  

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,

Come to the waters;

And you who have no money,

Come, buy and eat.

Yes, come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without price.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,

And let your soul delight itself in abundance.

Isaiah 55:1-3, New King James Version