Miserere

In G. Rouault's Miserere an articulated 'story', or 'discourse', can be read through images and captions, with meanings assigned to individual plates, to groups of plates and the whole. It is essentially the story of the mercy with which God responds to man's misery, sending the Son between us sinners to save us and make us his children. The Miserere, therefore, tells (it is the subject) not a story, but 'the sacred story'; and as such it has a theological content, to be recognized by the author, his training and his maturity, including theological.

The Miserere, by Georges Rouault, is a series of 58 engravings, each accompanied by a caption, with a sequential order established between the plates, an order to be respected for correct reading. Each plate (image and caption) also has its autonomy, but its meaning cannot be fully grasped without considering the context (the other plates) and the correlations established by the artist in the context.