The Meeting – Oil on canvas – 28 x 32 inches.
Twilight falls over the city and soon night will arrive in a swarm of stars. A woman descends the stairs toward the river and the Boatman who awaits his passengers. She can’t hear the voices of the crowd of souls that surround her, nor can she see them. She feels alone, but she is not afraid.
Who is she? She could be anyone: an office worker in an insurance company. A soccer mom from the suburbs. An off-duty police officer. A tourist from anywhere in the world. On the other hand, she could be Everyone, even the artist who painted her.
To the Boatman, her identity is not important. He waits for her with the same indifferent patience as he waits for everyone else. Does she have enough coins in her purse to pay for the voyage? Sufficient coins or not, he will wait.
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Mike,
Unless the largely unseen river is the Styx and the totally unseen Boatman is Charon, I just don’t get it. Superb artistry, but this one’s a puzzler.
Ron
Ron,
Of all the comments on this post, only two people understood what I was trying to suggest, and you are one of them. However, what I’m writing now is not an adequate reply; puzzlement deserves a deeper response, and I’ll send it in an email probably tomorrow or Tuesday after I take a couple of photographs. In the meanwhile, thanks for writing. Expect an explanation and apology soon.
Mike
This painting seems to be all about perspective, all about rectilinear lines. Then again it seems to be all about the mysterious woman descending the stairs. Still and all, maybe it’s about the atmosphere, a near fog that one can almost touch and feel. Is it dusk? Is it about the exquisite attention to detail? The human touch is everywhere. It’s a city after all, rather a human invention. Everything save the sky has been made by humans. Great architecture, curves, squares and rectangles, telephone, benches, buildings, sculptures. You’re never one to miss a human foible, however. Never one to idealize what is there. Take the electrical wire coming out of the lamp near the telephone. The architects should have seen that coming and hidden it behind the façade. Or the length of conduit to the right. Should have been hidden, but this particular electrical connection came after the building was built. Why should you help out the designers? They goofed. It’s there. You paint it. Bravo! Tour de force work, Miguel. Beautifully precise, beautifully mysterious. The title certainly leads to mystery, but so does every element of the painting.