The Last Temptation from the collection of Miriam McClung

The Last Temptation, 2000

Oil on Linen Canvas

48 x 84 x 1.5 in

Inv: 438-MM

NFS

Not For Sale

"The Last Temptation" draws on Matthew 4:8-10, the moment Satan takes Jesus to the top of a high mountain and offers him all the kingdoms of the earth if he will worship him.

McClung paints the two figures standing together on a stone overlook—the dark, cloaked form of Satan beside the pale, white-robed figure of Christ—gazing out over a vast valley. She sets the scene at the top of Shades Mountain in Vestavia, Alabama, on one of the last remaining overlooks of the former home of George Ward, looking down on Samford University and out toward Birmingham, with the houses and trees of the area on the right and the statue of Vulcan barely visible on the mountain above Homewood.

By staging the offer of "all the kingdoms" over a real and familiar Birmingham view spread out below the two figures, she makes the temptation concrete, turning an abstract test into a place a viewer could actually stand and survey.

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