Heraclitus

Writers in antiquity already set Heraclitus and Democritus against each other. Heraclitus was the philosopher who wept over the folly of mankind, Democritus the one who could only laugh at it, and painters liked to show them as a pair. Ter Brugghen painted both in 1628, and his laughing Democritus hangs nearby. Here Heraclitus is an old, bald man, his cheek sunk into one hand, his eyes lowered. He leans on a terrestrial globe, the whole world under his elbow, and lifts his other hand in a gesture of dismissal, as if to say it all comes to nothing. The light falls hard on the bare shoulder and the loose skin of his arm. High in the grey background is the signature, with the letters H, T and B joined in a single monogram, and the date 1628.