" IRISH CHURCH AND BARN OWL "
Robert Bateman

950 Signed & Numbered Lithograph Print 24.5" x 24.5" Email-price
180 Signed & Numbered Giclee Canvas 31" x 31" Email-price

Hand Signed by Robert Bateman

Robert Bateman - Irish Church and Barn Owl - Tyto alba

" In the Connemara district of Ireland there are a number of wild and lonely lakes.
If you take a boat to a certain island on one of them you will find a path winding into
a woodland. The path leads to a clearing and there are the ruins of an early 12th century
Christian church. There was a dreadful and dark time for the fledgling Christianity.

Vikings and barbarians were busy robbing and destroying the fragments of the Roman
Empire. In remote corners little bands of priests kept the flame of learning and
literature alive. The Irish monks were of vital importance in hiding and maintaining
the spark of civilization that was there when stability and security returned to Europe
(that is, if one can describe the feudal system as stable and secure). I felt that this
clearing and this church with the sky for its roof had a very spiritual presence. I cast
the painting in green tones ... a spiritual colour to me. I added the barn owl, which
could have been there. This bird is near the earliest owls on an evolutionary scale.
It also has deep symbolic roots in the beliefs of the pre-Christian Europeans. I like
the way the owls face echoes the eroded faces of the saints embedded in the
Romanesque arch."
Robert Bateman

1999 - Original acrylic - 36" x 36" - Irish Church and Barn Owl - Robert Bateman

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