Elevation and Entanglement in Ribera

Eugene Newmann's painting Elevation and Entanglement in Ribera (2009) is the artist's interpretation of Peter Paul Rubens' 1610 painting Elevation of the Cross (the central panel of the triptych, which is also sometimes referred to as The Raising of the Cross). Newmann isolated certain aspects of the Rubens painting to focus on, abstracting them until they were reduced to their essence-for example, the red shirt sleeve of the man lifting the cross in the Rubens painting becomes a red crescent in the Newmann painting, echoing the form in the Rubens painting. This practice is seen throughout Newmann's painting, where elements of the original are emphasized or deemphasized according to the artist's interpretation. Sky becomes an important part of the landscape in Newmann's work when it is barely visible in the Rubens painting-perhaps a nod to the predominance of sky in the New Mexico landscape that the artist has studied since he moved to the state in 1972. (Ribera in the title refers to the New Mexico town Newmann lives in.) And what is the focal point in the Rubens painting (the figure of Christ) becomes nonessential in Elevation and Entanglement. In fact, it is the peripheries of the composition that take on greater detail and development in the Newmann painting.

Before executing Elevation and Entanglement in Ribera, Newmann painted an oil on panel work entitled Paul's Elevation (study) (2009). Paul's Elevation was also an interpretation of the Rubens painting, but it is a more academic-style figure study rather than an abstraction. Through this figure study, Newmann also analyzed the Rubens painting compositionally and emphasized the dynamic movement and the diagonal of the Rubens. In contrast, through Elevation and Entanglement in Ribera, Newmann's focus was on flat areas of color rather than monochromatic modeling of the figure.