Two Contemporary Madonnas

This is a light post this time! I was looking at the many pictures on my walls, and came across two contemporary Madonnas, both of which are beautiful in their different ways. One came from Rottingdean in Sussex, England (Rudyard Kipling’s home), while the other came from New Orleans.

While the two cities couldn’t be further apart in terms of style and atmosphere, they do share an esoteric background in common. Rottingdean, originally a Saxon town, is close to Brighton, a town steeped in many traditions from Golden Dawn and Martinism to Aleister Crowley, whose funeral took place at the crematorium. New Orleans is, of course, famous for its connections to Marie Laveau and Voodoo, and the setting for Anne Rice’s vampires! Both places exude an almost syrupy atmosphere of occult connections.

 The first Madonna was painted by a friend in Brighton, Princess Roxane Lobanov-Rostovsky (née Bibesco-Rosetti). An accomplished painter in her own right, she had invited me to an exhibition of her works in an art shop in Rottingdean back in the late 1970s. I fell in love with a particular watercolor, based on a image of the Madonna she had seen in a mosaic at Ravena, Italy. I was truly upset when I found out it had already been sold. Roxane happily told me she would pain me my own version, and a few weeks later I went to her house to collect it. Here it is:

The second Madonna hails from New Orleans around 1999. I had come across a local painter, Richard Lewis, a couple of years earlier and had been particularly struck by his bold use of primary colors, a little reminiscent of Gaugin. I had purchased a few of his works before, but this image really spoke to me. Primitive and powerful, like an icon, her eyes draw you into the picture and fill you with her compassion:

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I hope you like them.