Jim Charter wrote:
> Techically stunning, especially the lush grass matted with debris, the 
> accuracy of the tree species, even the sky.
> Thematically I feel like the thought is there, the elements are orbiting 
> around but haven't come together quite yet.

Well put, thats exactly how I feel about it too.


> Compositionally, the 
> symmetry, with the ruin right in the center, perhaps calls for something 
> more pared down and stark, or else the lushness wants for less symmetry? 

Yes, I'm aware of that and I think my idea by using a more 'Classical' 
(meant as opposed to 'Romantic') layout was to add an ironic touch 
already to the composition. But I'm definitely not so sure anymore where 
and how far this ironic distance should go.


>  The ruin, feels not quite right, something so destroyed, yet still 
> maintaining crucial details of wrought iron and archway.
> That it is not overgrown in such a lush setting, and the flanking dead 
> trees are the tipoff to what you are aiming to say off course, but I 
> just don't quite feel that it has jelled into a total statement.

In fact the 'design' of the ruin is stolen from Caspar David Friedrich
who used the building within several paintings - and by sometimes 
'putting' the ruin in total different environments. Thats quite usual
for artists (not only painters) of the Romanticism as they where not 
interested Realism but in an idealized picture of nature and the middle
ages.


> The strange coincedence of events around the cross with raven, for 
> instance, leaving the tree behind seem to float.

Yes, the raven. Edgar Allen Poe - as I do read him - meant his well 
known novels and poems quite ironic or even as a parody to the 'German 
Gothic Art' that was quite en vogue during the 19th century in America.
Poe's other writings, letters and art criticism do make it quite clear 
that he was in fact a child of the 'Age of Enlightenment'.


Thanks a lot for your input Jim, it forced me to actually think again 
about my own intentions because I got quite sidetracked by purely 
technical aspects.

-Ive

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