Madonna of the Television painting by Chris Shaw

Acrylic on Canvas, 2010

I love Botticelli.  When I was in Italy I had the opportunity to spend some time looking at the originals,  everything about his paintings is influential to me.  As an artist, sometimes you don’t want to appropriate from a true master,  no matter how good you may be, they can make you look bad.  This painting is based on Botticelli’s Madonna of the Pomegranite.  The original is truly a masterpiece.  Perhaps what I like the most is how Boticelli was obviously into painting beautiful women,  even if it was the Madonna,  immaculate mother of Jesus.  He got in a bit of hot water over this later.  If you look further into the painting,  it contains a lot of hidden geometric & Masonic symbolism,  everything from pyramids and the All-Seeing Eye, to circles in 7 segments.

I had no intention of recreating a Botticelli,  but I did want to borrow the form and composition to make a new, stripped-down image. I substituted the original baby Jesus with an analog television, and painted the whole thing on a metallic gold ground with a deep amber glaze.  This painting is also designed to work in a UV light environment.