Triptych – Our Lady of Lebanon – Virgin Mary

A triptych is a representation painted or carved in three sections, two of which can be folded onto the central panel. It dates from medieval times and is a reminder of the Holy Trinity.

Thousands of Byzantine icons have been executed as triptychs of different dimensions and forms. Since the middle ages and the Renaissance right down to the present, this kind of representation has been very common.

During a recent stay somewhere in Europe where there were thoughts of endowing a cathedral with a triptych done by myself, studies were made with stress on three elements: Our Lady of Lebanon Queen of Heaven, The Maronite Patriarchate, the sanctuary of the Paulist Fathers at Harissa, the magical Bay of Jounieh, and the many-thousand-year-old Forest of the Cedars. For such projects, the artist must make dozens, even hundreds, of studies.

To compose does not mean to copy, but rather to create, to draw on oneself, to lay out on space virgin lines, forms, and colors, to write a new particular, and individual pictorial language.

The first study is rather a landscape, with cedars to the right and the Bay of Jounieh with Harissa at its center and Our Lady in the sky. The colors are warm ones, mainly browns, and oranges.

In the second study one sees Jounieh to the left, but more in the foreground, with the Cedars to the right and in the center a great crowd gathered at the foot of the monument dedicated to Our Lady, Here the Holy Virgin takes up the most prominent places in the canvas. In the background, one sees Harissa with the shrine of the Paulists. The colors blend into blues.

The two compositions are open to various modifications, total or partial, and perhaps other ones may yet be conceived. A work of art is never finally achieved!

Joseph MATAR