This painting is that of the temptations of Christ in the desert.  The face of Christ is based on Rublev’s icon of Christ.

Here are the stones which Jesus was tempted to change into bread.  We are reminded that we, too, have to rely on more than physical food. We have to rely on the Word of God.

Satan tempts Jesus to take power over the world which is here represented by the planet earth in the sky. We, too, are tempted to take control over others and over events. We have to surrender to God alone.

This picture shows the face fragmented and the tower which Jesus was tempted to climb to perform a wonder for the people, to attract them by magic. Perhaps we too often want to take the easiest paths rather than the  way God wants us to follow.

The Temptations were real for Jesus, both in the desert, in the garden of Gethsemane when he even sweated blood and at other times too. The splitting head symbolises this torment. Jesus knows what our tangled minds suffer too when our hearts and heads break and split with self-deception, anxiety, distress, compulsions....