Fin Ludwigs Art Explorations

  This painting is called  Landscape with the Flight into Egypt  by artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting was made in 1563 in Belgium and is oil on a wooden board, it depicts Mary and Joseph fleeing from Bethlehem with baby Jesus. I find this piece captivating for its use of a dramatic and imaginative landscape to add a sense of divinity to Mary and Joseph's journey. The atmospheric perspective gives the painting a sense of scale with Mary's saturated red dress standing out in the foreground. This creates a very strong focal point and draws the viewer's eye closer to the subject, upon doing so baby Jesus's head from among Mary's cloak becomes obvious to the viewer. This well-thought-out progression curated by the artist sets this piece apart from other landscape-style biblical pieces from this time. Bruegel worked in the aftermath of the Reformation and his landscape paintings represent a separation from the long-standing iconography of the Catholic church.

       This is a Mark Maggiori painting titled " Little Sheep ". Painted in Arizona and finished in 2023 this piece depicts Navajo cowboys In the heart of Monument Valley Arizona, a place that is iconic among Western films. I am extremely fond of painting for many reasons, but mostly because of how thought-provoking and seemingly spiritual the piece is. The composition of this painting with the dominating shadow cast across the ridge is exciting, along with the strong linear diagonal element of the ridge that creates a sense of dynamic movement in the piece.       The painting breaks the rule of thirds by placing the prominent white-horsed cowboy extremely low on the canvas. This creates tension between the foreground line and the bottom of the canvas, making the viewer spend more time on the horse. To balance this the moon mimics the placement of the horse but on the top of the canvas. this placement of the moon along with the similarity in color and value harbors an almost