In praise of small paintings

Small paintings are charming, intimate, unobtrusive, flexible....They can be placed on a piece furniture, small wall, bookcase. The can form interesting compositions on a large wall mixed with different size paintings. They can be collected, moved around, given as gifts. Since they are usually less expensive than large paintings, they can be purchased for pleasure and not necessaarily for investment. Being raised in Italy I am used to walls with collections of paintings, different subjects, sizes, colors, frames. I don't understand "one wall one painting". The houses of my youth had large numbers of small paintings: some were bought as souvenirs, some received as gifts, some were family heirlooms, and there was always a friend or a relative who was an artist. My grandmother used to paint in oils. I only have one of her small paintings: a peasant girl walking on a country road in a style reminiscent of Corot. Since grandma was not a "famous" artists her paintings were given away and not taken into consideration. I know now that she was a pretty good painter who went to the Art Accademy but never took herself nor her art very seriously. In those day taking oneself seriously was considered unbecoming especially for women.

I paint a lot of small paintings. They can be studies for larger paintings, plein air notations or just a way of keeping my painting juices flowing. Here is a small landscape painted a few days ago. It's an oil on panel size 5x7"