Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)

60″ x 135″ 2010-11,  oil on wood panel,  ©2011, Margaret Wall-Romana

Posted in all work copyright Margaret Wall-Romana 2001-2010, oil on wood panel

details – Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)

detail 1 – Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)


detail 2 – Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)


detail 3 – Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)

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Towards and Away

46″ x 116″ – 2010                           oil on wood panel © 2010 Margaret Wall-Romana

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details – Towards and Away

detail 1 – Towards and Away

detail 2 – Towards and Away

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Painting Painting (with van der Weyden)


60″ x 77″ – 2009  oil on panel    oil on wood panel © 2009 Margaret Wall-Romana (photo courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

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details – Painting Painting (with van der Weyden)

detail 1 – Painting Painting (with van der Weyden)

detail 2 – Painting Painting (with van der Weyden)                                                                  (photo courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts)


detail 3 – Painting Painting (with van der Weyden)                                                               (photo courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

Posted in oil on wood panel

Deposition From the Cross, Rogier van der Weyden


Rogier van der Weyden’s 1432 Deposition From the Cross, at the Prado, was the inspiration for “Painting Painting (with van der Weyden)”.

The issue of narrative content is a fraught one for many contemporary viewers, particularly vis-à-vis Christian iconography. Many people feel they just can’t relate to a crucifixion scene or a painting of Saint Somebody to whom something is being done. But narrative content is a bit of a red herring. Paintings are admired by those interested in the medium despite as well as because of what they depict. So we may wonder, if we like, whether van der Weyden was a devout Christian (in fact he was) or a painter simply hired to paint a particular scene, but what his painting shows for sure – no research required – is that he was devoted to painting.

When I looked at this painting upside down (an old trick painters use to gain some distance from narrative, the better to see a painting’s formal qualities) the Christ figure took on the feeling of a sleeper who dreams of other spaces and times. It reminded me of the mythological figure of Persephone who dreams of returning to earth from the underworld, another cosmological story of death and rebirth.

Van der Weyden broke with the convention of his time, which dictated that this oft-depicted scene should have a landscape setting. Instead, he set it in a shallow, almost shadowbox-like space barely big enough to contain its figures, and orchestrated ingeniously layered rhythms and repetitions that loop and sweep back and forth between the inward-curving figures bracketing the painting’s left and right edges. The ten nearly full-size figures have a startlingly sculptural quality, and thrust out towards the viewer.  At the same time, somehow, their crisp contours and the linearity of the angular folds of their garments seem to sit on the picture’s surface and emphasize its qualities of abstraction. The way the figures take up the picture plane, both from side to side and bottom to top, is another of the aspects of this painting that I find remarkable for its time. I used echos of these aspects in my own painting.

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Tumble


Tumble (Orientation 1)  oil on wood panel © 2010 Margaret Wall-Romana

 Tumble (orientation 2)   oil on wood panel © 2010 Margaret Wall-Romana 

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detail – Tumble (orientation 2)

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The Wooden Bird

48″ x 83″   2010                             oil on wood panel © 2010 Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – The Wooden Bird

detail 1 – The Wooden Bird

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Still Life with Walnut Boat

48″ x 83″     2009                          oil on wood panel © 2009 Margaret Wall-Romana

 

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details – Still Life with Walnut Boat

detail 1 – Still Life with Walnut Boat



detail 2 – Still Life with Walnut Boat


detail 3 – Still Life with Walnut Boat

 

Posted in oil on wood panel, Uncategorized

The Spaces

62″ x 92″   2007                           oil on wood panel © 2007  Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – The Spaces

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Parentheses (here and there)

62″ x 84″       2007                    oil on wood panel © 2007  Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – Parentheses (here and there)

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Parentheses (becoming)

62″ x 84″       2007                oil on wood panel © 2007  Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – Parentheses (becoming)

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Ellipsis Near & Far

54″ x 80″       2007                       oil on wood panel © 2007  Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – Ellipsis Near & Far

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Ellipsis with Chinese Lanterns

62″ x 92″   2007                           oil on wood panel © 2007  Margaret Wall-Romana

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details – Ellipsis with Chinese Lanterns

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Distillation with Iris

  46″ x 72″   2004                       oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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Luminous Floraclot

68″ x 54″       2004                      oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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(detail) Luminous Floraclot

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Little Finch with Bruegel’s Mill

33″ x 78″      2004                        oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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Cruciform Distillation

46″ x 110″        2004                  oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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In the Distance, the Mill

42″ x 96″     2004                          oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – In the distance, the Mill

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Green Bones

30″ x 46″      2003                        oil on wood panel © 2003 Margaret Wall-Romana

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Near Grizzly Slough

40″ x 72″      2001                         oil on wood panel © 2001 Margaret Wall-Romana

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Forgotten Clippers


80″ x 46″  2001    oil on wood panel © 2001 Margaret Wall-Romana

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Distillation with Crossed Callas

42″ x 75″     2004                    oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – Distillation with Crossed Callas

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Blue Nasturtiums

46″ x 54″  2004                     oil on wood panel © 2004 Margaret Wall-Romana

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detail – Blue Nasturtiums

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Twine (2-panel painting, configuration 1)

46" x 84"   oil on wood panel,   2001

42″ x 92″   2001                           oil on wood panel © 2001 Margaret Wall-Romana

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Twine (2-panel painting, configuration 2)

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42″ x 92″   2001                           oil on wood panel © 2001 Margaret Wall-Romana

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