ABSTRACT
In Franz Kafka’s The Trial, a horrifying fable of human alienation from human institutions, there is a central encounter between Kafka’s persona K. and the painter Titorelli, whose task is to reproduce endlessly the icons of the judicial system-arbitrary, logically absurd, yet cruel and inescapable-of which K. has become the latest victim. Approaching a painting in progress, K. recognized its subject as a Judge, but could not identify a large figure rising in the middle of the picture from the high back of the judicial seat.
