ANTHONY BAUS
(b. 1981)
Gabriel (Youth Approaching a Well)
2019
Oil on linen
32 x 46 inches
Anthony Baus is an alumnus and faculty member of the Grand Central Atelier in Long Island City, New York. His unique artistic vision, which mines the world of antiquity as source material for contemporary issues, is expressed through an astonishing graphic facility derived from intense study of Italian baroque drawing and painting.
His references from the ancient world are never literal; rather they are romantic, meditative, and original. His impressive technique does not reflect the mind of a copyist. The Old Master-style that style Baus has embraced is his preferred language of expression, but his content is entirely personal. Baus has described it as “romantically inspired narratives created on scaffolding of ancient architecture, richly imbued with symbolism and mystery.”
The present painting is one of a series of works that began as a meditation on time. Months spent in Rome drew Baus into study of and contemplation on the Mithraic Mysteries, the cult religion practiced there from the 1st to the 4th centuries AD. The characters that inform Mithraism provide the starting point for Baus’s rumination on thought and the position of man in the universe, expressed through symbolism both historical and fantastical.
Gabriel depicts a young boy, tentatively approaching a group of older youths posed menacingly around a well. One of the rogues holds a snake wrapped around his arms, while his companion holds a knife in her hand. The young protagonist, who was modeled on the artist’s son, teeters on the edge of solid, paved ground and begins to step onto untamed earth, encouraged to approach the well by the figure draped in a billowing yellow cloak behind him. The elaborate architectural surround that sets the scene recalls the ruins of ancient Rome but is in fact a capriccio, coming entirely from the mind of the artist.
Baus first developed the composition by designing a baptism scene, which became the model for the sculpted scene on the wall behind the figures (Fig. 1). The heads of the figures were also developed through carefully drawn studies of live models (Figs. 2-3). The sculpture on the left of the painting, which depicts Mithras slaughtering a bull (the main cult image of Mithraism), was first executed by Baus as a clay model before being translated into paint (Fig. 4). Baus also completed a finished drawing that served as a model for the painting before executing this canvas.
Baus’s works can be savored as intricate compositions of great beauty and finesse. They are also complex and sophisticated allegories on weighty themes. However appreciated or approached, they provide an introduction to a visionary artist of earnest intent and expansive imagination.
