This is a new painting, 12″ by 18″ on paper, that I’m calling To the End of Time. It’s another take on the Baucis and Philemon theme that I have used and talked about here before, from the Greek myth from the poor couple who were favored by the Gods for their generosity of spirit and were rewarded by being allowed to be united for eternity in the form of two trees that sprouted from the same trunk.
This piece has a wonderful simplicity of form and composition, letting the depth in the colors and the the movement created in the texture of the sky and in the foliage of the trees carry the narrative and emotional load. I think this painting is very much enhanced by its spareness of detail, making the central figures seem as they exist in some otherworldly plane, free from the drone of the everyday.
The sky here takes on a character of its own with the swirling bands of gesso that dance across it. There is also a nice intensity in the color and contrast of it. This is one of those pieces that I like to use as an example of how much can be said with little, how each bit of the painting, every square inch, has visual interest. This was a premise I started painting with many years ago and when my work is at its best, this is very evident.
Well, at least to me.
Redtree Times 