Month: September 2026

My latest painting Orpheus in the Underworld began with a sketch back in April of this year:

By May, the sketch had been translated to a canvas.

Our hero emerges.

 

My initial intention was for a darker, gloomier Underworld , more in line with familiar depictions such as Pieter Fris’s (1628-1706) Orpheus and Eurydice in the Underworld . 

I really admired the playfulness of some of the dead, the romping fellow who had snagged Orpheus’s lyre I found very appealing . But with gloom in mind , somehow my Underworld brightened into a chthonic suburb in the Tudor Revival fashion. I went with it;I am glad I did.

 

I paid particular detail to the royal court of Hades, he on the right, the slight queen of the underworld Persephone on the left and front and center, the object of Orpheus’s affection and quest, Eurydice.

 

 

The money changing Charon was particularly fun to paint, as were his woe begone passengers.

Our hero.

I am beginning a new painting, not in the Underworld but above ground with Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness; a glimmer of that  Upperworld in this detail: