Untitled (Church in the Rio Grande Valley)

This is an untitled painting by artist Paul Lantz, depicting a New Mexican church. The work is 40 inches wide and 26 inches high, painted with oil on canvas.  For more about this painting style and the history of this painting, read the “About the Artwork” section above.

The painting shows a small church in what we know is the Rio Grande river valley of New Mexico. It sits at the base of two large hills, both brownish red and dotted with green trees or shrubs. Above the hills is a blue sky filled with three different white cloud formations—billowing cumulus and popcorn-shaped stratus clouds directly behind the hills, and wispy cirrus painted with sweeping brush strokes flowing above.

The rectangle-shaped church has brown walls, a white rectangular door, a square dormer window above the entrance, a gray pitched roof, and a short steeple with a cross on top. The white door of the church opens into a courtyard enclosed by a brown adobe wall and brown wood door. The straight lines and square corners of the church building contrast with the soft, undulating curves of the adobe wall. On either side of the church building are unconnected sections of wooden post and rail fencing that are falling apart in places, appearing older than the church which looks newly built.

The ground in the foreground of the painting in front of the church is smooth, brown earth, with small patches of green grass and the occasional shrub. In the lower right corner, bristly branches of a green bush poke up through a pile of sharp-edged, glinting light brown rocks.

In the foreground a lone woman walks across the painting from right to left on a dirt road in front of the church. She wears a red, short-sleeved shift and she is in mid-step. Her torso is turned toward the left and she walks forward, while her head turns back in the direction of the church behind her.