Tom Wudl
Title: Awaiting the Miraculous Mandarin
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas. 1999
Location:

This painting is brimming with personal and symbolic meaning. The image represents a heavenly realm for the composer Béla Bartók, who is the “Miraculous Mandarin” of the painting’s title.

Listen to the music associated artwork.

The empty birdcage and its surrounding “ghost birds” represent Bartok’s soul escaping his body. The black violin represents his corpse and the empty violin case represents his coffin. The woman in the center was Wudl’s violin teacher at the time the work was painted.

Tom Wudl
Untitled
1971. Acrylic on Canvas

Inspired by imagery expressing the cosmos and infinite realms of enlightenment, the artist paints an intricate and complex composition with the play of overlapping forms and color.