Artworks
The Knight, the Lady and the Priest 2 (from the series «The Knight, the Lady and the Priest»)
painting
Date
1984
Technique
Acrylic on paper laid on canvas
Dimensions
152 x 121,5 cm
Paula Rego is the most international and acclaimed Portuguese painter still working. Living in England, with double nationality, she is among the greatest painters of our days in this country. An artist with a strong personality, Paula Rego created a grammatical language inscribed in the new figuration of the second half of the 20th century, with themes, a vast iconography and pictorial techniques that characterize and give an exclusive identity to her work.
Such is the case of this painting, the second in the series “The Knight, the Lady and the Priest”, that earlier was wrongly classified as belonging to the “Vivian Girls” series, which follows it. Both series have many formal similarities, which explain the possible confusion at a first gaze, given the proximity of the feminine figures and the animal and anthropomorphic beings. Yet, the chromatism is very different, the pallet being much more contained in “The Knight, the Lady and the Priest” series, with an intense predomination of red in the background planes complemented by another colour, green in this painting, emphasising the contours and some fillings in black. The countless figures in various scales and different orientations, drawn with a strong contour and placed onto the white background, are distributed in an dynamic and disconcerting way throughout the medium.
Paula Rego started painting this series in 1983, at her Berry Street Studio, and was inspired by Georges Duby's book “The Knight, the Lady and the Priest - The realisation of modern marriage in medieval France”, from 1981, which deals with the institution of marriage and matrimonial morality. In this painting, the central feminine figure refuses to hold a broom offered by a skeletal hidden figure; the remaining micro-narratives reveal scenes of imprisoned women, demoniacal and frightening beings, in an atmosphere of fear, violence, anguish and suffering. Paula Rego, in her very personal style, explores a thematic present in all her work, the domestic tension forged within marital expectations.
Such is the case of this painting, the second in the series “The Knight, the Lady and the Priest”, that earlier was wrongly classified as belonging to the “Vivian Girls” series, which follows it. Both series have many formal similarities, which explain the possible confusion at a first gaze, given the proximity of the feminine figures and the animal and anthropomorphic beings. Yet, the chromatism is very different, the pallet being much more contained in “The Knight, the Lady and the Priest” series, with an intense predomination of red in the background planes complemented by another colour, green in this painting, emphasising the contours and some fillings in black. The countless figures in various scales and different orientations, drawn with a strong contour and placed onto the white background, are distributed in an dynamic and disconcerting way throughout the medium.
Paula Rego started painting this series in 1983, at her Berry Street Studio, and was inspired by Georges Duby's book “The Knight, the Lady and the Priest - The realisation of modern marriage in medieval France”, from 1981, which deals with the institution of marriage and matrimonial morality. In this painting, the central feminine figure refuses to hold a broom offered by a skeletal hidden figure; the remaining micro-narratives reveal scenes of imprisoned women, demoniacal and frightening beings, in an atmosphere of fear, violence, anguish and suffering. Paula Rego, in her very personal style, explores a thematic present in all her work, the domestic tension forged within marital expectations.
