2020

Ascension

Cleveland, Ohio

16 x 20 oil

This painting includes follows a them in my work of painting iconic Cleveland buildings and imagery. What is different about this piece is that the iconic symbols for the city are more front and center to the painting in celebrating some of Cleveland’s best, the Fountain of Eternal Life (a memorial to veterans of the World Wars and Korean War), and the Terminal Tower.

This was painted on two successive beautiful summer days. What is more subtle, but just as iconic from an urban design standpoint, is that this perspective is viewed from historic Mall C, designed by Daniel Burnham who is qouted as saying “make no small plans, for they have no power to stir the soul”.

As for the statue, it was designed by artist Marshall Frederick. He described the statue with these words: “this figure expresses the main theme of the fountain, namely, the spirit of mankind rising out of the encircling flames of war, pestilence, and the destructive elements of life, reaching and ascending to a new understanding of life. Man rising above death, reaching upward to his God and toward peace”.