"I look for inspiration in the humanistic tradition of classical art. My canvases express the entire spectrum of human emotions from exhilaration and cheerfulness to contentment, melancholy, pain, and agony," explains Rut (pronounced root), who now resides in Palm Beach, Florida.

Encouraged by his mother, a painter herself, as a child Rut was introduced to the Pompeiien Frescos and the magnificence of the Renaissance and the Baroque, which today inspire his stunning oil on canvases and sweeping murals. These masterful illusionary works, both in scale and splendor, evoke the harmony and form of the master painters, including the flamboyance of Rubens, the finesse of Caravaggio, and the emotion of Michelangelo. Rut’s imaginary figures - centaurs, fauns, muses, and winged creatures - colorfully burst from the canvas with the grandiosity of Olympian Gods in active and dramatic poses.

"Rut’s mural size paintings are contemporary conversions of the classical vocabulary variously continued by Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Rubens," explains Dorothy Keane-White, Art Curator & Director for Northwood University. "In making them he returns us to antiquity by a double detour. First, he sets in motion the charming unreal apparatus of the Quattrocento mise-en-scene, and more importantly its heroic nudity, vigorous modeling, expressive anatomic structure, powerful movement and fascinating physiogamy. Tinged with sadness, his super-human youths play once more on Arcadian pipes - a motif also reprised by Matisse. Alternatively, he offers us impossible delicate, gracile females - ‘still unravished bride(s) of quietness’ - delimiting them with sylvan togas and braided tresses. Nor does he leave rearing steeds, which in the grand manner represent humanity’s turbulent passions."

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