BEAUTIFUL PAINTING OF WOMAN PRAYING SIGNED HERA

This is another painting I found at my local thrift store while treasure hunting today. I loved the deep color & even the way the artist made the shadowing of her face with the same color of background.
It is signed Hera - but when I googled painting signed Hera I got: Hera, Angels, Lyres, Goddesses, etc + Hera Greek Goddess - all having to do with religion like the painting, so is Hera a description or the artist?
Beautiful painting, right?
Thanks!

 

I forgot back, sorry

 

Nope

 

hands seem to be so hard to get right...

 

She has a chunky body but appears to have only one breast, also her wrists and lower arms a way to small and look out of place with the rest of her body, It's not bad but it's not lovely either. .. Joy.

 

It looks like street art on canvas.

The artist.
The subject is a Madonna, after a 'real' painting, can't remember which one.

 

Agree with the others, journey. It's kind of muddy, and the proportions of the anatomy are off. Foreshortening of the hands is absent. Because they're closer to the viewer, they should be larger, but they look tiny.

 

Maybe a modern Mary Magdalene?

https://pemptousia.com/2018/07/the-personality-of-saint-mary-magdalene-equal-to-the-apostles/


https://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=74596

 

I think that's it, except the painter didn't quite understand the colour symbolism. Mary Magdalene's robe is supposed to be red, not turquoise.
(Not that I mind turquoise... )

 

Hera - the wife of Zeus. Ironic on a Christian image. Very amateur, perhaps made for a tourist market.

 

It could just be the painter's name. I used to know a girl named Hera.

 

Religious art can be beautiful to one person for a different reason than to someone looking at the aesthetic quality. Maybe to the original poster the attitude is beautiful and that overshadows anything else. Religious/Spiritual painting (old school, not Rothko) is what I like best, but often primitive works transmit religious emotions quite well. It's the humility after all....

 

It is obviously beautiful to the purchaser and that is wonderful, but when one asks " Beautiful .. Right !!" It appears to ask for folks opinions, on this board one gives their expertise and opinions freely. To me just because it is a 'religious' painting does not necessarily make it a beautiful painting. ... Joy.

 

I really have nothing to add (and I’m bored from being stuck in the house hibernating until this virus goes on the decrease g-d willing) but have to admit I could brech from this painting. (Look it up if you don’t know this Yiddish word as IMO it’s far more descriptive in Yiddish than in English).

Regardless, I’m the first one to stand up for “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and art is all about how we as individuals respond to an object regardless of the artist’s actual intent or talent.

Personally I wish posters would phrase their questions differently. If one posts “ I bought this painting because I loved it and I’d appreciate any info you could give me” i think most would answer with constructive information and leave the subjective opinions aside since I think this bunch of usual posters have pretty much stated that they would not call it a beautiful painting.

But again, it only needs to be beautiful to you or one other person if you’re selling it.

I know next to nothing about Christian iconography so can’t comment there but it makes no sense to me that the goddess Hera would have her “tiny” hands in prayer so I don’t think it could be her except the sig does look like Hera and it’s more than I can handle that someone named Hera painted that piece.

 

IMO, it's the artist. I don't recall seeing a painting with a title painted down in the bottom corner like that.

Not sure whether this is accurate, but this "baby name" website gives a graph titled "Hera: Baby Name Popularity." Indicating that Hera is a given name at times. One wonders what data they used to populate their results:

https://www.thebump.com/b/hera-baby-name