‘The Hermit’ deals with physical and social seclusion. The hermit crab protects it’s vulnerable abdomen by encasing it within a salvaged seashell while religious hermits withdraw from society in order to facilitate a purer connection with God. Their hermitic existence protects them from worldly distractions of no consequence to their spiritual pursuits.
The painting shows a nautilus almost entirely encasing a skull cavity. A branch emerging from a crack between the shell and the skull is an antennae feeling for the outside world.