Things this bizarre had almost ceased to be human in shape. You could tell they were angels only from their placement, their fresh, spotless skin, and the enormous bright-white halo behind them.
Because so many arms and legs had been painted on the same flat surface, they had to overlap and tangle together, making them impossible to count at a glance. The strokes were clean and distinct, with clear layers and even a touch of perspective that gave them a sense of volume. They were as lifelike as the works in the largest churches, a testament to the artist's considerable effort in both composition and detail.
Of course, the seemingly inconspicuous sky in the background might have cost even more.
The clear, pure indigo was beautiful, likely made from some kind of expensive mineral pigment. Even with a mind not particularly attuned to money or art, he knew the stuff was frighteningly costly—about the equivalent of painting the wall with gold dust.
In this seemingly unremarkable church, most of the space behind the altar was taken up by the "figures," but the remaining area was still considerable. They had somehow been able to lavish pigment on it like this. Kraft was beginning to understand where all the money they took had gone.
Yet despite the enormous investment in the painting, the limbs were all wrong, bent and twisted like a child's drawing, sinuous and lacking any hint of joints, with lengths that varied wildly. There was no distinction between palms and wrists, or feet and ankles. Long, thin fingers and toes splayed out in every direction, some even sprouting from the upper sections of limbs.
There were examples of depicting the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit by giving it extra limbs, but this went well beyond innovation and into