Painting in sections

On Sunday I was struck by a painting, unless it was two paintings, that I saw in an exhibition. It was a perfectly competently painted heron and a rabbit hiding in the undergrowth — unsuccessfully, of course, otherwise the artist wouldn’t have known they were there, and he would just have painted the undergrowth. If I think about it, next time I’m there I will photograph it and show it to you. The unusual feature of this painting was that it was made of two separate halves, with the heron on one panel on the left and the rabbit on the other panel on the right. There was a gap of two inches or so between the two panels. That makes it a polyptych, but not a diptych, apparently, because the two halves of a diptych have to be joined together with a hinge, whereas the two panels of a polyptych can be separate.

Usually any sort of image that you see around you is in one piece. Pictures of a hamburger behind the counter in Macdonalds, for instance, are in one piece. They don't show the left half on the hamburger on one panel and the right half of the hamburger on the other panel. They don't even show the bun on one panel and the patty on the other panel.

I could only think of one kind of image that is commonly drawn on several — four, in this case — separate panels. I wondered whether it was possible to convert any painting that I know of into a four-panelled polyptych and if so, what the result would be.

Suddenly it dawned on me. Here is the result.

Click the image for a larger version.

5 May 2019. Today I visited the café where I saw the two-panel painting of the heron and the rabbit. I regret that the painting is no longer on show there.