Virgin at Prayer
When Renaissance painters rediscovered perspective, did people experience it the way that we experience exciting new technologies.
When I ran into Sassoferrato’s Virgin at Prayer at the National Gallery in London it was like running into a time machine and I didn’t know if I was going forward or backwards. I knew immediately that I would have to finger-paint it on my iPad.
I wanted to send it as a Christmas gift but I missed my deadline by months. I got there in the end though. My very Catholic mother-in-law loved it and hung it proudly on the wall.
When I started finger-painting on my iPad, I used to bang one out in maybe thirty minutes but they took me longer and longer as I got better. This one took me months and drained my enthusiasm a bit. I have a half-finished Edward Hopper rip-off in the works but my muse has left me and who knows when she’ll be back.
As a non-believer, it is curious that I am drawn to images of 'The Virgin Mary'.
I perceive in them a combination of serenity and unconditional love depicted in her at all stages, from conception to grief over Jesus' loss. They appear to represent a universal appeal to stoic humanism which transcends any religious dogma, absent in other examples of religious art and literature of any flavour.
i cant post photos, but you bet thats still on the wall