Bucolic Florida

by AnnaJo Vahle

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Dimensions

36.000 x 24.000 x 1.000 inches

Title

Bucolic Florida

Artist

AnnaJo Vahle

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Canvas

Description

As an adjective, bucolic refers to an ideal country life that many yearn for. You wouldn't know it to look at it, but bucolic is a distant relation of cow. All bucolic's meanings can be connected to the bovine creature. Bucolic ultimately comes from the Greek boukolos, cowherd or herdsman. A bucolic could be a short poem about pastoral (cow) life or a country person, who is stereotyped as a cowherd. Uses as an adjective, bucolic can refer to an idealized rural life (think life with cows) or to herdsmen (more cows). And that's no bull.

Idealized bucolic landscapes appear in Hellenistic and Roman wall paintings. Interest in the bucolic as a subject for art revived in Renaissance Italy. French artist were also attracted to the pastoral or bucolic landscapes.

I have lived in Florida for nearly thirty years. When I first lived in this area, this type of scene was most common when away from the beaches or orange groves.

I based this scene on what Viera, a new city in Brevard County, looked like before it existed. It used to be mostly cow pastures and orange groves. I have always painted scenes around here that seem to be disappearing.

This particular bucolic painting shows a calf suckling her mother. A cattle egret, sometimes called a cow bird, flies in to join them. The cattle egret often accompany cattle or other large mammals, catching insect and small vertebrate prey disturbed by these animals. This species maintains a special relationship with cattle. They often remove ticks and flies from cattle and consume them. This benefits both species.

Sabal palms, also known as cabbage palms or palmetto palms, grow among the pines and oak trees. They are all native to Florida.

In an essay entitled ‘The Poet’, published in 1844, the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson lamented the narrow definition of beauty subscribed to by his peers, who tended to reserve the term exclusively for the bucolic landscapes and unspoilt pastoral scenes celebrated in the works of well-known artists and poets of the past.

The history of this genre of art inspired me to join so many other artists in paying homage to this subject. This is an acrylic painting on a 24 by 36 inch stretched canvas. The watermark does not appear on prints.

Uploaded

November 7th, 2014

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