A Wee Bit O' Heaven

                                                  An original acrylic painting, on stretched canvas
                                                  10 X 20",
                                                  ( This painting will not be available from this site
                                                     until it is returned from an exhibition, but giclee
                                                      fine-art prints are available.)


                                                       ( click on image to enlarge )

     The title of this painting, is taken from a line in a very, very old, popular, Irish-American
song.  I realize that by doubling up on that word "very", I risk sounding like Donald Trump,
trying to hide from the truth, by bolstering his falsehoods with doubled-up adjectives, in an
effort to sound more emphatically persuasive and believable, but in truth, I doubt that the
old song has been heard on any major, broadcast network in well over sixty years or
more.
     I have not done an internet search on that old song, so I do not know who wrote it,
but I do know why. The song was written to satisfy the market for songs which appealed
to the nostalgia and the longing, which the Irish-Americas felt, for the land they had to
leave behind.  It may not even have been written by someone of Irish heritage: that was
not a prerequisite on tin-pan alley.
     The song is the story of all the various ingredients, which went into creating that
perfect land, across the sea, including that bit of heaven, which were all then gathered
and somehow blended, until finally "They called it Ireland".  The song was a standard for
Irish Tenors, who sang it on music and variety shows, on radio and television, right up
through the early 1950's, until the ratings system destroyed diversity in broadcasting.

     The painting is probably as much of a cliche as that old song.  We like to think of
Ireland, as a land of picturesque, green hills, dotted with charming, white-washed,
stone cottages, with thatched roofs,  and also somehow, the eternal folk-tale of the
pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow, always becomes a part of the mental image.
( Did any treasure-hunters ever stop to ask which end of the rainbow, was the
correct location of the gold? )
     But, of course,the true picture of Irish history is a much sadder tale.  I don't know
where that old expression about the "luck of the Irish" came from.  In all the dark
years of the past centuries, good luck rarely visited that land.


    The structure of this painting's composition is based on several very broad "S"
curves, which intersect at the center of interest, where the old road descends into
the valley and to the hills beyond.



     This painting is now custom framed, in a richly toned, molding, with a
fine, white-linen liner.

A Tale As Old As Time

                                                   An original acrylic painting, on canvas panel
                                                   10 X 8", unframed
                                                   $250.00, ( plus $9.00, pack and ship )


                                                          ( click on image to enlarge )

     The vast majority of mankind's art and literature, created in the last twenty five
hundred years, have not survived the ravages of time.  Much of the treasury of wisdom
and beauty which was created in ancient Greece, in particular,has come down to us
only in pieces or fragments.  They suffered through too many centuries when such
creations were deemed unworthy of preservation, or deliberately destroyed by the
forces of ignorance and religious intolerance.
     One of the better survivors, was the collection of fables, written by a slave named
Aesop, who is thought to have lived in Greece between 620 and 564 BCE.  Perhaps
his little tales survived all through the years, because they fit the long tradition of oral
story-telling, in the days when most people were illiterate.  Some of the succeeding
story-tellers, even began adding some stories of their own, so that, now, scholars
have classified which of the tales actually came from Aesop's time, and which ones
came much later.
    With the invention of the printing press, the popularity of Aesop's Fables bloomed
and spread around the world.  They have been told and retold in all the art forms,
including drama, song and film, in endless variations.  One of the tales, the fable of
The Tortoise And The Hare, is cleverly depicted in a little Italian figurine, which I
sometimes use as a subject for still-life paintings, such as this one I have posted
today.
     The old story of this improbable foot-race between two such unequal contestants,
still rings true for many of us.  The over-confident rabbit has a good time, enjoying
himself with all manner of distractions, always thinking he would have plenty of time
to get to the finish line before his pathetic opponent, while in the end, it is the
 slow-but-steady tortoise who wins the race.
     As we all grow older, the more we all come to realize how short is the time
 of our race, and how very close we are to our own finish-line, looming up ahead.


     In my last post, I mentioned the use of over-lapping planes, in the composition,
to create depth of field.  So, I am posting this painting, to show how something as
simple as a pile of old books can accomplish that, because of all of the different,
rectangular shapes, receding from the picture-plane. A book pile can also be a
useful subject for drawing practice.  It can be a challenge because of all the
perspective complications, with so many different vanishing-points.


     This painting is now available custom framed, in a handsome, heavy, hard-wood,
molding, with a fine, linen liner, for $325.00, plus $30.00, to carefully pack and ship.