A Note on the Paintings

“There is something about the line between atmosphere and earth, about the interaction between the tops of trees and air that make me look.” This is how Marc Bohne describes what has moved him to paint the works featured in this book.

In these paintings one can see trees, tall or squat, reaching up to the sky and, you can almost sense, down deep into the earth, for life. The broad, dry, gravel road, overhung by an impenetrable line of the forest, is cut by sunlight where it appears to end, only to reveal a narrow strip further on. The fields of wheat, cast in an unseen cloud’s growing shadow, wave, still smoldering with light. A pool of standing water gathers nearby, full of the golden sky. All these solid things meet the great, shimmering horizon of the American midwest, sometimes hidden but always present. And they seem to be filled with a waiting – an expectation that the mysterious and great promise present in this place will be revealed.

Looking at these paintings it is hard not to think of St. Paul’s words to the Romans undergoing perplexities and trials: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God…” This revelation he describes as their “glorious freedom” for which “all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.”

Bohne has put it this way, “We know what we need by what moves us. The heart longs for what it is missing, the absent or denied things that will make it whole.”

We are privileged to be able to share the paintings in this booklet with Bohne’s generous permission, and grateful for the way in which he helps us to look.

Page Number........................................ Image Title

4.....................................................................Heartland 8.....................................Boone County Blues Suite #4 10......................................................In the Flood Plain 14...................................................Haze Near Rosebud 18........................................ South Dakota Daybreak II 22............................................................ Missouri Rain

Images by Marc Bohne Used with the artist’s permission marcbohne.com

St. Benedict’s Abbey

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