St. Luke Drawing a Portrait of the Virgin Mary (Rogier van der Weyden Improvisation)

• Year created: 2009

• Medium: oil on canvas

• Dimensions (cm): 120x175

This improvisation on St. Luke Drawing a Portrait of the Virgin Mary reimagines Rogier van der Weyden’s sacred vision through a dreamlike, almost ethereal lens. Soft washes of pastel tones dominate the canvas, blurring the boundary between figure and atmosphere. The Virgin, serene and tender, emerges from the haze with the Christ child in her arms, her form dissolving gently into the surrounding abstraction.

On the right, a faint figure—St. Luke—appears in fragmented strokes of blue, brown, and white, his contemplative gaze set against the flowing field of color. The act of creation is suggested rather than fully defined, as though the painting is caught between vision and memory. Shapes float across the canvas, resembling vessels, drapery, or the artist’s tools, dissolving into luminous ambiguity.

This work transforms the devotional subject into a meditation on perception and imagination. Sacred intimacy and artistic process intertwine, not through detail, but through atmosphere—an improvisation where holiness, artistry, and abstraction become inseparable.