Paintings by Agostino Arrivabene
After his initial training at art school where Arrivabene says he learnt next to nothing, Agostino Arrivabene toured throughout Europe and studied the Old Master paintings. He researched how to grind his own pigments: lapis lazuli, indigo, cinnabar and madder, dragon’s blood, orpiment and bistre. Arrivabene also studied the almost-forgotten techniques of painting like mischtechnik, used by such artists as Albrech Dürer and Matthias Grünewald.
In the mischtechnik process, egg tempera is used in combination with oil-based paints to create translucent layers that, when laid over each other, refract light through the painting thus creating a sense of luminosity. Arrivabene’s attention to the minutiae of his craft has resulted in paintings actually embodying a process of alchemical transformation. The physical matter of painting itself, the lead, the ground pigment, the egg, and the oil, is transmuted through the agency of his craft into extraordinary light-filled visions.
Another notable aspect of Arrivabene’s work is its dense saturation with painting’s history; his work resonates with a lineage of past visionary artists. Within Arrivabene’s work, we see glimpses of Francisco Goya, Leonardo da Vinci, Gustave Moreau, William Blake, Odd Nerdrum, and in some of his pencil drawings, Mervyn Peake. Despite this sense of continuity and connection with past masters, Arrivabene’s work remains fresh, contemporary, and distinctly his own.