Maud Taber-Thomas

If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great ‘twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov’st the one, and I the other….

    One god is god of both, as poets feign;
    One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

-Richard Barnfield (1574-1620)

            Elizabethan poet Richard Barnfield’s sonnet “If music and sweet poetry agree,” highlights the harmonious bond between two seemingly separate art forms, music and poetry. In the spirit of the poem, artist Maud Taber-Thomas creates luminous drawings and paintings that embody a loving conversation between several different art forms. A passionate scholar of classic literature, an avid classical musician, and an enthusiast of past time periods, Maud Taber-Thomas interweaves all of these interests into her artwork. Her paintings tell the stories that she discovers in Victorian and Medieval literature, capture the vibrant light and color of far-off places and distant times, and weave together symbols in compositions reminiscent of polyphonic music.

            Trained in academic painting techniques, Maud Taber-Thomas’s artistic process is strongly tied to the methods employed by artists from past generations, from the Renaissance Tenebrists, to the French Rococo painters, to the Pre-Raphaelites and the Impressionist portraitists. Working in miniature, on a larger than life scale, and every size in between, Maud Taber-Thomas endows all of her works with a sense of the fleeting nature of light, a celebration of color, and a sympathetic and tranquil sense of peace and thoughtfulness. Many of her works feature sensitive portraits that evoke the complex inner life of her subjects, hinting at stories that transcend the single moment that can be depicted in a visual artwork. Maud Taber-Thomas’s drawings and paintings exist within a peaceful conversation between the many art forms that she loves. In her work, music, sweet poetry—and the fine arts—agree.