"Paintings With Personality"

This painting involved several firsts for me. The adventure began when I soaked the watercolor paper in turpentine, then dribbled the blue dots in various areas. The paper sat around my studio for several months while I worked on other things that had to be done. When I started thinking about triptychs, I pulled the paper out, took a good look at all those dots and started to paint. I used both transparent and opaque watercolor paints. The three abstract panels are connected with color, line and texture. It is done on a full sheet (22x30) of 140 lb. arches watercolor paper. 

I knitted scarves for one of our daughters and her three daughters. I chose different colors of the same yarn for our three granddaughters, and our daughter is getting (I haven’t finished it) one made from the yarn of all three girls. I’ve been calling that scarf a triptych (pronounced trip-tik), which led me to want to know more about triptychs and to try painting one myself.

If you have been to the Middle Age section of an art museum, you’ve seen triptychs which were used in early Christian art. Most of us know triptychs as three carved or painted board panels hinged together, with a religious theme. Traditionally, triptychs have a large center panel with two smaller side panels. The back of each side panel is also painted creating, five painted panels, three inside and two outside. The interior panels are similar in subject matter, but the exterior panels have little in common with the inside panels. When closed, the triptych made a flat, easy to carry, package.

Today, triptychs are a different matter altogether. They can be on any surface, and usually aren’t hinged, or painted on the back. The theme in each image is similar and to be successful needs a similar composition, but doesn’t necessarily have to be of the same subject. They don’t have to be on panels, and they can be painted, digitally created, or made with photographs. The only rule is that there has to be three separate images, because triptych comes from a Greek word meaning “three-fold.” Although, we seldom fold them these days.

Besides the triptych, art has been created in: Two parts - diptych, four parts – tetraptych, five parts – pentaptych, six parts – hexaptych, seven parts – heptaptych, and eight parts – octaptych. A Polyptych (Greek for many) is probably easier to use, because it covers all of the “tychs” mentioned above. A “multiple” (often confused with triptych) is something entirely different, that word refers to reproductions, such as giclees, made from an artist’s work.

Some ideas for creating unity in a triptych are:

1. Paint the same scene, spread across all three panels.

2. Paint three different paintings connected by color, movement, line or any of the design elements.

3. Paint the same scene at different times of the day, or different seasons of the year.

4. Paint the same scene viewed from different angles.

5. Show detail in one painting and less detail of the same subject in the next and the next. 

However you do it, they need to link in some way, particularly when the subjects of each are different.

'I see images in series. And I suppose I could go on long beyond the triptych and do five or six together, but I find the triptych is a more balanced unit'. – Francis Bacon