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.