Paisajes -- Landscapes - Rygaard, Maya

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Maya Rygaard “Four Seasons” A reflection of natural Scandinavia Seeing is the eye’s reason, but not its function. Reading is the eye’s function, but not its movement. Perceiving is the eye’s movement, but not its power. Illuminating is the eye’s power, but not its attribute. Absence, void of images, in a timeless state, is the eye’s attribute and its virtual defeat. The pictorial suite by Swedish artist Maya Rygaard explores the firm cultural importance of the Scandinavian landscape. Landscape painting began to gain a special significance at the beginning of the 1900-century. Legendary painters such as Edward Munch, Vilhelm Hammershöi, Carl Larsson and Akseli Gallen-Kallela were the front figures of the strong Scandinavian tradition of landscape art. At the end of 1900-century landscape painting became more subjective in its artistic form and content. We can observe more metaphorical and personal interpretations of landscapes, interacting with the artist’s emotional status and mood changes, manifested trough intensity or the choice of pallet at any given moment. Maya Rygaard proceeds further along the classical, romantic path forged by the Nordic tradition in landscape art. She explores and experiments, shifting from romantic classical landscapes towards the more abstract. Her monumental, solemn works are influenced by solitude and melancholy, while directly reflecting the natural itself of north-central Sweden. Her works with their powerful psychological aura are influenced by themes and colours of the four seasons. The solid cold, long Swedish winters, for instance, with its dark pallet, near blacks, that introduce us to solitary places and isolation abandoned in eternal shadows, places that spiritually imprison by driving us further to contemplate countless existential issues about our times. Maya Rygaard’s artistry includes a search for and an investigation into the different physical and metaphysical states of the Scandinavian landscape, a search for hidden magical moments where light and darkness play profound role in the creation and formation of each chosen scenery and where nature’s elements bear upon the living. In the suite “The Four Seasons” we see a playful mind of the artist depicting her different moods, shifted by impressions during her various trips trough Sweden, Finland and Norway. We observe instances of loneliness, melancholy, warmth and coldness and still with distinct poetic but subtly dramatic features. Maya Rygaard’s work searches for rendering enlightenment upon small connections and fragments which link northern romanticism and modern abstraction. She was inspired by essayist Robert Rosenbaum, who recognized the seeds of modern abstract art in the romantic landscape painting of the 1900-century, an idea he expressed in his influential essay “Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko”.
This New York art historian and keen critic, who died in 2006, linked aesthetics and the historical-cultural tradition of delicately primitive northern romanticism to European and American modern abstract painting. He cited artists from artistic tendencies, such as Carl Gustav Carus, Carl Blechen, William Turner, Miles Constable, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Munch, Paul Klee, Vasilij Kadinsky and Max Ernst, in order to illustrate a pictorial evolution and the introduction of abstraction into landscape representations. Robert Rosenbaum’s study comprises of discussing landscapes painted by prominent figures in American abstract expressionism like Mark Rothko, Adolf Gottlieb, Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock. He also observes how the influence of romanticism lives on in the work of two contemporary European artists Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter. Maya Rygaard has worked with landscape as an essential concept since the end of 2004. She has been investigating the most imaginative aspects of Scandinavian natural mythology: a study of the relationship between presence and absence, the timeless state and its dimensions. We can observe signs of the endless variations of the seasons, where raw merciless nature governs every aspect of our very existence. Her painting has its own intimately sensual but utterly sincere language, free from the rules of verbal expression. English version by Christofer Catilan The Gods The gods’ chariots do not shake the clouds, they glide silently forward like rays. The gods’ steps are as hard to hear as the grass’s scarcely perceived murmur. Cautiously, cautiously follow those paths that smell of their healing closeness. Call no names! They will fly, they will leave you word-filled in an empty world. Poem by Karin Boye
Page 1 and 2: Paisajes -- Landscapes
Page 3: El crítico e historiador de arte n
Page 7 and 8: Sunset Solitude II - Soledad en la
Page 9 and 10: Wintry Lowlands III - Invierno en T
Page 11 and 12: ˜ Arctic Serenity - Serenidad Árt
Page 13 and 14: Wintry Melancholy - Melancolía Inv
Page 15 and 16: Maya Rygaard Born 1957 in Vaasa, Fi

Paisajes -- Landscapes - Rygaard, Maya

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