Painted Turtle

13 April 2021

POLYPTYCH & GROUP PAINTINGS

1. PAINTED TURTLE

In an earlier posting (5 April 2021) I referred to an assembly of four photographs of the changing seasons through the door window by my desk as a polyptych, a term usually associated with paintings. Painted Turtle, above, is a more traditional polyptych.   Polyptych literally means "multi-hinged."  This triptych of three paintings is exactly that: The three framed paintings are hinged together. And Painted Turtle is also quite literal; it is a painting of a painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), the most common turtle in North America.

The paintings are acrylic on canvasboard.  Look closely and you will see a band of glyphs which I have isolated here...

 The symbols are adapted from petroglyphs carved into rocks along the Susquehanna River and the northern Chesapeake Bay, a habitat where the painted turtle is widely found.  They may be as much as 4000 years old.  There is an interesting posting by the Chesapeake Conservancy about petroglyphs rescued from the rising water flooding the valley behind the Conwingo Dam in the 1920s at https://www.chesapeakeconservancy.org/what-we-do/conserve/advancing-goals/regional-initiatives/envision-the-susquehanna/petroglyphs/

We will visit other painting groups in coming posts.

 

 

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