Even today it is common to find large trees next to churches and hermitages, the presence of these temple trees is a sign of ancient sacred places. In the past, the tree was a meeting place, it welcomed the tribe and at the same time was its spiritual leader. With the advent of the new Christian religion, the sacred tree became a pagan idol which the church opted to assimilate in order to facilitate the conversion of the animist tribes.
The image shows a naked tree, in winter, in the cutting season, with the wounds of the axe and saw at its foot, depicting the moment before it falls to the ground. The piece is conceived as a woodcut matrix, articulated in three parts in the manner of an altarpiece to allude to its sacred character.
Opening the piece and seeing it depicted is like opening a book to read the image, to recognize in this case an innocent victim, like a Man of Sorrows of the medieval tradition, who is no longer Christ but an oak accompanied by his particular arma christi or tools of passion, the axe and the saw.
