Mary

oil on panel, 14″ x 17.5″, 2020

My response to the Dura-Europos painting, Woman (or Mary) at the Well. In the Dura painting, the figure is working-class in darkness and quite mysterious. Joseph Gutmann argued that the Dura painting may be the earliest (c. 235) depiction of Mary, as it relates to the annunciation as recorded in the eleventh verse of the Protoevangelium of James:

And she took the pitcher, and went out to fill it with water. And, behold, a voice saying: Hail, thou who hast received grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women! And she looked round, on the right hand and on the left, to see whence this voice came ¹

In my depiction the bucket is empty, and she looks up to her right to where the voice is coming from. My compositional form is based on the egg shape, as in Northern (non-Greco/Roman) painting.

^{1 Translation of the Protoevangelium of James, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/infancyjames-roberts.html}