Steve Justice Studio

Art - Design

Pieta Kalevala; the Lamentation of Lemminkainen

Steve Justice Painting Title: Pieta Kalevala; the Lamentation of Lemminkainen Material: oil on canvas Size: 56x64 Year: 1998 “A song works across time the way a painting works across space … The song tells me what to do. The less my brain is involved, the more I trust the music. Often, I don’t know what the song is about until after it’s done, and not even always then.” -- Jean Sibelius This collision of earth and sky mythologies was inspired by my seeing Michelangelo’s delicate, seemingly lighter-than-air Pieta in Rome and by my study of Finland’s Kalevala mythology. Jesus and Lemminkainen were both mama’s boys who ran into trouble, died and were reborn, each in His/his own way. This canvas is shaped to suggest that it might have been “liberated” from a niche in a church during the Second World War, was hidden or lost, but has been rediscovered. The large mushroom in the background I saw on an enchanting hike in the woods in Marin County. Title: Pieta Kalevala; the Lamentation of Lemminkainen
Material: oil on canvas
Size: 56×64
Year: 1998

“A song works across time the way a painting works across space … The song tells me what to do. The less my brain is involved, the more I trust the music. Often, I don’t know what the song is about until after it’s done, and not even always then.” — Jean Sibelius

This collision of earth and sky mythologies was inspired by my seeing Michelangelo’s delicate, seemingly lighter-than-air Pieta in Rome and by my study of Finland’s Kalevala mythology. Jesus and Lemminkainen were both mama’s boys who ran into trouble, died and were reborn, each in His/his own way. This canvas is shaped to suggest that it might have been “liberated” from a niche in a church during the Second World War, was hidden or lost, but has been rediscovered. The large mushroom in the background I saw on an enchanting hike in the woods in Marin County.