Malcolm Bucknall

Then and Now

Then

1347: The Plague (population of England reduced from six million to two million) bringing disruption of the old order and construction of a new

1450-1516: Hieronymus Bosch

1453: Fall of Byzantium and decimation of a vast body of classical knowledge with the loss of the Library of Constantine

1455: Gutenberg Bible and invention of movable type, thereby furthering spread of knowledge and education

1472-1553: Lucas Cranach

1492: Columbus discovers the New World

1517: Martin Luther posts the Papal Bull (Ninety-Five Theses); start of the Reformation

1519-1522: Magellan circumnavigates the globe

A busy half-century—post-pandemic and transforming!

Now

There's a new plague in town from which I am largely sequestered. Here's me sitting in my studio fascinated with the work of these guys. I have easy availability to good color reproductions, in print and on the internet that can be matched and mashed, reduced and enlarged, added and subtracted, generally manipulated any which way.

Art may be timeless, but sensibilities change. My exemplars' works were heavily narrative and very dense, due perhaps to the relative scarcity of books and definitely to the lack of cameras, movies and TVs. "There's a new picture in town" would be the advertisement for a new Lucas Cranach work, meaty enough to take your girlfriend to with maybe a banquet afterwards. That sensibility—very un-Modern—speaks to me, engages a contemporary mindset.

So that's what's grabbing me. I may be a time-lapsed apprentice to Hieronymus Bosch and Lucas Cranach, but I'm enjoying this approach to painting here and now.

Long Live Art!

Born in Twickenham, England, Malcolm Bucknall has been a professional artist since 1963. He has had gallery affiliations in New York City, Seattle, New Orleans, Taos, Austin, Dallas and Houston.