Sunday, March 11, 2012

Triptych

This weekend was spent painting my art room/guest room, which we refer to as our "Dreaming Room", a lovely shade of green. This took more time than expected, and thus my time for Domythic posts sadly have been neglected. However, one of the walls in the newly green room has a gothic arch wall shelf I realized would be just perfect for a small triple-hinged frame set I found at a craft shop. So I was in the market to search for triptych images.

A triptych, although traditionally done for church altars with religious art, seems to trigger an innate aesthetic appeal for images in triplicate. It also offers a huge artistic enticement in its traditional format of an ornately closed arch, opening to reveal three interlocking and interrelated images. Although I admire greatly the triptych in its original form, I have a special fondness for modern and secular artists who take this religious form and make it their own.


Artist Leona Carrington:

Source


A gorgeous Etsy listing from MichaelBroad, who has two others for sale, equally fantastic:


For our Cephalopod-loving members, from Etsy seller Srzglass:

And of course, by the ever-inspirational Terri Windling:
By artist Bonni Reid

I've long wanted to make my own triptych as well...it can be done not only with three cut pieces of wood hinged together, but just a simple triple hinged frame. You can split an image you love from a print or calendar in three parts, or better yet, try creating a set of three interrelated images in photographic or art form.

6 comments:

  1. Oh, I adore tryptiches! Hmm... *wanders off to ponder paint tubes again*

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love this post, Grace. Triptychs appeal greatly to me. Michael Broad is a real discovery, too, so thank you! I have an old mirror I found in a charity shop, with space for a picture either side of the mirror, so I had two old Edwardian actress postcards enlarged for it and they look lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  3. By the way, the Bonnie Reid link takes us to the Etsy octopus (same link as previously) - thought you'd want to know. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Melissa, pondering paint tubes is a noble pasttime :D :D

    Mags, that sounds beautiful!! I found a blank wooden triptych base at a garage sale last year and now I greatly regret not having purchased it. Thanks for the heads-up on the link! It should be fixed now...chalk that one up to my weary room-painting brain ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I tried doing a triptych portable alter in ceramic. Sadly, it didn't work very well, as it was too heavy for the small hinges I had for it. I made it while a student. There is alot I'd do differently now-I may try it again, eventually. It was to be dedicated to one of the Irish goddesses-I dont remember which one now.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Leigh, I'd love to see it, and a new one if you do another.

    ReplyDelete