Early in his career, Michigan artist Armand Merizon was known as a painter of photo-realistic landscapes and imaginative nature scenes. When he developed macular degeneration in the late 1980s, he traded representational work for a more abstract style and began to look inward for ideas and inspiration. His 1972 painting The Return features an ambiguous, ethereal figure framed in a transparent enclosure.
Dura-Europos, a Roman military outpost along the Euphrates River (in modern-day Syria) that was abandoned in the third century, was one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century. Among the discoveries there were the remains of a Jewish synagogue, whose walls were covered with murals recounting the history of Israel. One painting from ca. 239 CE shows Moses and the burning bush. The presence of God is indicated not only by the fire in the bush but also by the detached, gesturing hand in the upper left corner.