Historical Moss Articles

The following articles about the life and art of P. Buckely Moss were extracted from past issues of “The Moss Museum Messenger,” which was an official publication of the P. Buckley Moss Museum. From 1989 to 2014, the Museum exhibited and interpreted primary examples from the extensive body of watercolors, oil paintings, drawings and prints created by the living American artist, P. Buckley Moss (b. 1933). To read an article, please click on the title below.

“Rediscover Art” was the Moss Museum’s motto. It reflected the Museum’s overall goal to present original art in a friendly forum capable of bringing the public’s attention back to a true sense of aesthetic joy. The art of P. Buckley Moss is especially suited to this purpose.

Peter Rippe, the author of these articles, was the Director of the P. Buckley Moss Museum since it opened in 1989 until 1999. A fellow of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterhtur Museum in Delaware, he has been director of museums in Richmond and Roanoke, Virginia and in Houston, Texas. He is a past president of both Texas’ and Virginia’s museum association and has served on the governing council of the American Association of Museums.

Article Titles:

The Blue Madonna | The Iconography of the Goose in the Art of P. Buckley Moss | Moss Humor

The Plain People in the Art of P. Buckley Moss | The Art of Pat Moss from her Collectors’ Point-of-View

Black Cats (Drolleries) by Moss | Accentuating the Positive: Patricia Buckley Moss, Quintessential Optimist

Emersed in the Music of Art: The Still Life Paintings of P. Buckley Moss | The Question of Remarques

Uniquely Moss: Her Personal Point-of-View | A Balance of Artistic Creation and Printing Technology

P. Buckley Moss in her Blue Madonna captures many aspects of this usually saintly and always feminine archetype. Theologically speaking, Moss’ Madonna can be best understood as a pictorial image of the ancient dogmatic concept of the Divine Mother. It is related to the many paintings of the Virgin which can be loosely termed as “devotional” rather than Biblical, historical, or social. Consequently, the Blue Madonna is neither a teaching piece nor a portrait piece, but rather a traditional “icon” through which the viewer is asked to transcend his/her physical existence into a new emotionally and spiritually centered world. This can be a somewhat difficult concept for many people who were brought up with the artistic expectations of Renaissance reality, anatomical correctness, and even self-centered abstraction. Moss’ world of mystical insights, if one stops to consider, can often be a rather jolting experience.

The Blue Madonna exists primarily because the artist wanted to share her own reaction to the woman who is known, theologically, as “The God Bearer.” To begin with, this is no real woman of flesh, blood, passion, and desire. In contrast to many other artistic renditions of this basic Christian theme, Moss does not intend her Madonna to remind its viewers of some regal queen, or an old love, or even of one’s long suffering mother. The falling shoulders and the extremely long neck, as well as the gentle tilt of the head, are meant to discourage such associations. This is a new creation that the viewer’s eyes are allowed to enter wherein they are expertly directed by the artist’s use of lines of composition, contrasting colors, and obvious textural effects finally to the brilliant deep green eyes of the piece itself. It is in the very depths of these unusual eyes, that the viewer’s gaze comes to rest, caught in the loving reflection of a holy woman’s maternal, ageless, and unconditional concern for all creation.

To illustrate the power of the Blue Madonna, quite recently, a little girl about two years old came into the Museum’s exhibition with her family and began the gallery tour. The guide, as usual, told the family about Pat Moss’ early years and about her) training as an artist. As the guide talked, the little girl moved ahead to the Blue Madonna where she stood on her somewhat wobbly little legs just below the painting and stared innocently upwards into the Madonna’s eyes. Finally, the tour moved on past the painting and into the section that shows how Pat Moss developed her distinctive Valley style. Still, despite her mother’s admonitions, the little girl kept going back to the Madonna painting where she would stand transfixed … or pointing and saying “donna, donna,” remembering at least the best part of the “pretty lady’s” name as learned from the guide. This little girl had caught the spirit of the Blue Madonna and was basking, so to speak, in this icon’s inner radiance. The same thing can happen to an adult who is drawn emotionally and intellectually into the spiritual reality of this powerful work and finds there a new wonder of discovery. The Blue Madonna by P. Buckley Moss is one of the pieces most favored by the public in the entire Moss Museum collection.

The Blue Madonna

ca 1960, oil

The Virgin Mary, often referred to as the “Madonna” (Italian, my lady), is one of the most common subjects in Christian art. Depicted both with and without the Christ Child, St. Mary appears on the walls of ancient Roman catacombs, as an enthroned queen or protectress in Medieval art, as a sweet/suffering mother or a stunning carefree beauty in Renaissance art, and as a variety of feminine types during all other periods even to our own day. Religious and non-religious, the attributes of the Madonna as shown in Western art are as broad and as mixed as the name “woman” and all of its implications can possibly imply.

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