A person “should hear a little music, read a little poetry and see a fine picture every day of his life in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which has been implanted in the human soul.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said this long ago, but it is truer today than ever. So many of us are missing attending concerts, rummaging through bookstores or sitting in front of our favorite painting at a museum. We need that art fix.

Now, we can get it through the virtual art exhibits underway, including the 2021 St. Anthony on the Desert virtual exhibit, featuring landscapes and still lives by artists Rosemarie Evans and her daughter-in-law Rebecca Evans.

Rosemarie has been a prominent artist for decades. Her work has been in Scottsdale galleries, at ASU Gammage and at The Farm, where she taught art. Art collectors all over the world own her works.

While her award-winning work is inspired by the impressionists and expressionists, Rosemarie’s paintings cannot be copied. She describes her landscapes and still lifes as personal and intimate.

They record her response to “the beauty of nature” as it touches her. The purpose of her art is “to communicate to others joy and hope.”

In the midst of the world pandemic, Rosemarie’s art reminds viewers of the wonders they have in store once they are able to explore the world again.

The second part of the exhibit features Rebecca Evans.

Each of her paintings captures a moment in time interpreted by emotion. Rebecca says her “paintings are the intense physical reaction to the colors, light and shapes” she sees. She said she wants to “remember that moment when that maroon red on green earth shattered me, when the orange light on that building gave me a calm gladness, when a scene of people walking energetically on a cold city street electrified me.”

Viewers can access the January Art Exhibit at st-anthony.net, click on “Adults,” “Social Connections” then “Arts Council.”

The exhibit will surely, as Goethe exhorted, nurture the soul.