Three Generations Gaze Away While Girl And Mother Caress Small Beast Of Prey
$1,150.00
Egg Tempera on vellum & 22k gold leaf 9.25 †x 6. 5†(double matted 15†x 12â€), 2012
About the piece:
This was my cat. I’m not sure what we were looking at or why my father took this photo. My dad’s mother lived with us. My mother never cared for her because no matter what she did it was never done well enough for my grandmother. We all tolerated her but she was rather sour, proper and sad. The cat in the margin is from a medieval bestiary.
About the series:
Each image in the Children and Beasts manuscript series came from studying medieval manuscripts and referencing early bestiaries, (collections of moralized fables about actual or mythical animals). Children feel a kinship with animals; both are felt to be untainted by the artificial structures of human civilization and remain natural and innocent. What better way to illustrate our middle class concepts of nostalgia and an ideal childhood than to merge these principles; the innocence of the ideal Western childhood with the charm, humor and imaginative aspect of the Medieval Bestiary?
All the of the titles are generated by mimicking the language, titles and descriptions of manuscripts and paintings on panel that I find in the many books on this subject that I keep in my studio.
