Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Tulips and Piero (detail)

An example of the rewards of looking up: figures from the wonderful Piero della Francesca murals that I saw high above me on the walls of the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo.

7 comments:

A Brush with Color said...

Oh, this is great--I love this image! Wonderfully executed.

Bruce Sherman said...

Hi Susan!... A beautiful painting in every respect from concept to completion!

How ironic... that "You" gained the insight to create this work from looking up... and your vantage point in painting it... is looking...down! A nice "rub"!

Good painting!
Regards,
Bruce Sherman

Susan Abbott said...

Thanks for your comments! Yes, Bruce, I thought about this while writing the post. I've loved this cycle of paintings by Piero (Legend of the True Cross" since discovering them at art school. When years later I went to Arezzo to see the actual frescoes, many were covered with tarps as they were being renovated. And, like much church art, they were way the heck up on the upper reaches of the walls. But I think that even when the details aren't as visible as they are in a reproduction, art should be seen in the space it was created to fill. The paintings in their natural site have a whole other dimension from the usual museum or book setting.

Ross Lynem said...

Terrific composition. Great idea and the vantage point is most interesting....
Great work.

Susan Abbott said...

Thanks so much, Ross!

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

Just beautiful.
I love the images from the murals, and the allegorical feeling of the painting.
How right you are about seeing art in the 'real'. If you think it looks great in a book, you'll be blown away when you see the real thing!

Susan Abbott said...

That's true, Mary. In Italy it takes detective work and meandering travel to find the great art hidden all over the countryside in little churches and civic halls. Always a thrill when the hunt is rewarded with a Madonna that you've only seen before as a 3" x 5" reproduction. The Italians seem to me to have both a casualness about living with this great art, combined with a reverence for their artistic heritage, that's quite wonderful.