Peace and Tranquility

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common hush afire with God;

But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

When speaking of the divine, I am referring to those experiences that are also described as sublime. And nature is the embodiment of the sublime.

Since a very young age I have had a deep connection with nature; often feeling close to the divine. Nature, water, and life attest to greater power and to the influence of the divine. Peace and tranquility can be found in the sacredness of the outdoors. Landscapes painted from memory or imagination capture the strength and beauty of the space along with the fragility of delicate flowers clinging to tree trunks or drooping towards the water of ponds and lakes. I feel the touch of the divine when I am in nature and hope to express the same within my renderings. Some of these spaces could be found at the tops of mountains or springs found in protected valleys. Some of the most beautiful places that have inspired my paintings include Cascade Springs located in Heber Valley, Utah as well as the various beaches along the California coastline.

The most majestic scenery that I enjoy painting includes the Alaskan lakes and mountain ranges where a close friend of mine lives. This pristine environment breathes sacred and inspires one to be contemplative and reflective. However, sacred space can be anywhere an individual feels the connection to the divine.

Claude Monet's Water Lily paintings represent that simple peaceful sacredness and his work has inspired some of my own water element paintings; paying close attention to the detail of the water plants and how the water rests. Additional inspiration came as I visited Ashton Gardens located at Thanksgiving Point in Utah. There are several ponds teeming with koi, gliding beneath the water lilies and between the reeds of various other water plants. It is fascinating to watch the shadows and light move across the water and beneath its surface. The colors found in Monet's paintings are cool and calming.

The Berlin Museum has a beautiful reconstruction of the outer Ishtar Gate, along with the Throne Room Walls and the walls of the Processional Way leading to the Ishtar Gate. Only one of the city gates of Babylon was so richly decorated with colored glazed bricks and animal reliefs.

It includes an outer and an inner gate. Only the smaller gate was rebuilt in the museum. We have to imagine that the inner gate is much taller. Glazed brick bas-reliefs covered the outer walls, depicting a total of about 575 animals. This unique building ornamentation served as a backdrop with a cultic protective function, with the divinities thus embodied accompanying the processions which were always held for the Babylonian New Year celebrations. Ishtar, depicted as a lion, was one of the most important goddesses of the ancient oriental pantheon.

Claude Monet is one of my favorite artists who has captured elements of nature and the ambient peace and serenity; ultimately capturing the divine. Monet, a prominent Impressionist painter completed an immense catalogue of water lily paintings.

According to Henry S. Francis, this series shows the development of

impressionism through Monet's imagery and his study of the aspects of light. Monet's invention and free treatment in handling paint, especially in his later work, is to the contemporary artist both stimulating and evocative (Francis 194).

The rich analogous colors found in both Monet's Water Lilies and the ornamentation of the Ishtar Gate and Throne Room have inspired the color pallet of my piece, Be Still My Soul. The shade of blue and green capture the essence of the life-giving waters and the freshness of the flora. The even, gentle stroke of the brush in Be Still My Soul was intentional; adding to the peaceful stillness of the scene.

Water in all its forms is a source of life and having it take up more than two-thirds of the canvas emphasizes its significance. The addition of the tiny white flowers states the purity of this natural environment and the sacredness of the divine. Be Still My Soul is a small painting, as it represents only a moment in time, measuring eight inches by eight inches.

References:

Francis, Henry S. "Claude Monet Water Lilies." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. vol. 47, no. 8, 1960. pp. 192-198.

"Monumental - Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin - Google Arts & Culture." Google, Google, artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/monumental/4gJCLa_AtizZIA.