Pansies
Judith Weinshall Liberman
Of the many series of flower paintings I have created recently, the PANSIES series has been the most difficult one for me to paint. I have always admired the beauty of pansies, and, now that I am 94 years old, I finally set out to capture in paints the beauty of these flowers. Using the only stencil I could find of a pansy, I proceeded with my task. I should have known before I began painting, but examining the stencil more carefully, that it would be quite a challenge to use that stencil to convey the loveliness of pansies. The spots on the petals looked like menacing eyes. As a result, the pansies in my paintings looked ominous rather than lovely. I added a lively background, and even rotated the painting 180 degrees, but nothing helped. I began to wonder whether my perception of pansies as lovely may have been wrong. I remembered that in Hebrew, pansies are called "Amnon and Tamar" in memory of a brother who, according to the Bible, raped his sister. I wondered if I should have taken a hint from the Hebrew name of pansies and not tried to make pansies look beautiful. But my admiration for the beauty of pansies demanded that I express that beauty. I abandoned the idea of using the stencil except for its outline of the petals, and created my own version of pansies.
Judith Weinshall Liberman
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