Tag: italy

Agostino Arrivabene

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.

Parmigianino

Parmigianino, “Vision of Saint Jerome”, Details, Oil on Canvas, 1525- 1527

The Vision of Saint Jerome is a painting by the Italian Mannerist artist Parmigianino, executed in 1526–1527. It is now in the National Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

The work was commissioned on 3 January 1526 in Rome, by Maria Bufalini, wife of Antonio Caccialupi, to decorate the family chapel in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. The contract mentioned “Francesco Mazola de Parma” and one “Pietro” with the same name, perhaps Parmigianino’s uncle Piero Ilario Mazzola.

According to late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, Parmigianino was working to this painting during the Sack of Rome, and he had to stop when the city was ravaged by the imperial troops. He was able to escape paying a ransom, while his uncle remained in Rome, being able to hide the painting in the refectory of Santa Maria della Pace.

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio “David with the Head of Goliath”., circa 1610, Oil on Canvas, 125 x 101 cm, Borghese Gallery and Museum, Rome

David with the Head of Goliath is a painting by the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio. It is housed in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. The painting, which was in the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese[a] in 1650] has been dated as early as 1605 and as late as 1609–1610, with more recent scholars tending towards the former.

The immediate inspiration for Caravaggio is a work by a follower of Giorgione, c.1510, but Caravaggio captures the drama more effectively by having the head dangling from David’s hand and dripping blood, rather than resting on a ledge. The sword in David’s hand carries an abbreviated inscription H-AS OS; this has been interpreted as an abbreviation of the Latin phrase Humilitas occidit superbiam (“humility kills pride”).

Marcantonio Raimondi

 

Marcantonio Raimondi, “The Climbers”, Engraving, 1510

Marcantonio Raimondi,was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists mainly of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print. He also systematized a technique of engraving that became dominant in Italy and elsewhere.

Around 1510, Marcantonio travelled to Rome and entered the circle of artists surrounding Raphael. This influence began showing up in engravings titled “The Climbers” (in which he reproduced part of Michelangelo’s “Soldiers Surprised Bathing”, also called “Battle of Cascina”). After a reproduction of a work by Raphael, entitled “Lucretia”, Raphael trained and assisted Marcantonio personally.

Around 1524, Marcantonio was briefly imprisoned by Pope Clement VII for making the I modi set of erotic engravings, from the designs of Giulio Romano, which were later accompanied by sonnets written by Pietro Aretino. At the intercession of the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, Baccio Bandinelli and Pietro Aretino, he was released, and set to work on his plate of the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” after Bandinelli.

Giorgio de Chico

Oil Paintings by Giorgio de Chico

Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian artist. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.

De Chirico won praise for his work almost immediately from the writer Guillaume Apollinaire, who helped to introduce his work to the later Surrealists. De Chirico strongly influenced the Surrealist movement: Yves Tanguy wrote how one day in 1922 he saw one of De Chirico’s paintings in an art dealer’s window, and was so impressed by it he resolved on the spot to become an artist—although he had never even held a brush. Other Surrealists who acknowledged De Chirico’s influence include Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, and René Magritte.

Willy Verginer

Figurative Wood Sculptures by Willy Verginer

Currently living and working in the idyllic town of Urtijëi, Italy, sculptor Willy Verginer shares a closeness with his environment in both technique and concept. His surreal wooden sculptures are carved from a single linden tree trunk with incredible precision and detail. Although their features are classical, Verginer paints bold stripes of color across his figures and poses them in awkward positions, making them completely contemporary. He’s often paired his figures of women, men, and young children with other animals and objects that don’t fit together.

His most  pieces at his June 2015 show, which were on view at Galerie Van Campen & Rochtus in Belgium, paired them with oil barrels. The gray or metallic color of the barrels transfer to the person or animal they are touching, forming a connection between natural and unnatural. Verginer calls this an act of “aggression,” representing mankind’s pollution of the world around him. As in his sculpture of a fawn, “Between idyllic and reality” (Tra idillico e realta), Verginer also introduces elements like a scaled down landscape or trees. By making something as grand as a forest small in size, the artist points to its fragility and pleas to his viewers to protect it.

Studioata, “The Livelli”

Tre Livelli, Studio Dwelling with Stepped Floor Plan, Designed by Studioata

“Tre Livelli” is a tiny studio retreat above the seaside town of Alassio, Liguria in northern Italy. It sits on a hillside site terraced with traditional Ligurian dry-stacked stone walls.

Studioata integrated the studio into the site with split stone cladding that matches the terrace walls. The architects took advantage of the different ground levels by raising the bedroom area up, giving it an unimpeded sea view through the large living area windows.

The spacious bathroom is located behind the bedroom. The bathroom door and the interior shower wall were made of translucent glass to let in extra light.

The kitchen was designed as an intermediate level between the living area and the bedroom by building it on a raised storage floor. Drawers and storage bins built into the floor provide enough storage to keep the 35 m2 (377 ft2) studio free of clutter. The kitchen cabinets are tucked under the bedroom level with the concrete countertop only being revealed when a section of the bedroom floor is flipped up to act as the backsplash.

Antonio Pollatoli

Antonio Pollatoli, “Battle of the Nudes”, circa 1470-75, Engraving, 42.4 x 60.9 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

“The Battle of the Nudes” or “Battle of the Naked Men”, circa 1465–1475, is an engraving, one of the most significant old master prints of the Italian Renaissance, executed by the Florentine goldsmith and sculptor Antonio del Pollaiuolo, also known as Antonio Pollatoli. The engraving is large at 42.4 x 60.9 cm and depicts five men wearing headbands and five men without, who are fighting in pairs with weapons, pictured in front of a dense background of vegetation.

All the figures are posed in different strained and athletic positions; in this aspect, the print is advanced for this period of the Renaissance. The style is classical; although, the figures are shown grimacing fiercely and their musculature of their bodies is strongly emphasized. An effective and largely original return-stroke engraving technique was employed to model the bodies, which resulted in a delicate and subtle effect.

Marco Stefanelli

Lighting by Marco Stefanelli

Italian designer Marco Stefanelli‘s handsome collection of Brecce lamps combine high-tech LED lights and scraps of wood to make a beautiful way to accent a space. The pieces are made from salvaged wood scraps sourced from a lumber mill, a local river, and even the firewood pile. The magic comes with the addition of low-energy LEDs embedded behind a layer of resin.

Nunzio Paci

Anatomical Paintings by Nunzio Paci

Taking the analogy comparing blood vessels and tree branches literally, Nunzio Paci creates oil and graphite paintings that connect humans back to nature. Paci’s works look almost straight from a medical textbook except for one flaw—the trees and animals that sprout from his subjects’ mouths, chests, and necks. Paci ultimately takes a painterly approach to his works, paint dripping down the canvas to add balance to his extreme detail.

Paci’s practice centers on the relationship between man and nature, especially focusing on the visual overlap of our intrinsic and extrinsic systems. The beautiful and minimally colored works could be interpreted as extremely morbid as Paci shows us our ultimate fate when nature takes over.

Nunzio was born in Bologna in 1977 and now lives and works in Italy. Nunzio Paci currently has a solo show including several of the pieces you see here at the Palazzo del Podestà in Bologna through October 12. Nunzio explains the work by saying, “My whole work deals with the relationship between man and Nature, in particular with animals and plants. The focus of my observation is body with its mutations. My intention is to explore the infinite possibilities of life, in search of a balance between reality and imagination.”

Emanuele Giannelli

Sculptures by Emanuele Giannelli

Emanuele Giannelli, born in 1962, is a figurative sculptor – Roman by origin and Tuscan by adoption. His sculptural research emerged after studies at the Academy in Rome and was influenced by the visionary works of cartoonists Billal and Moebius, , by films like ‘Blade Runner’ and by musical groups such as ‘Ministry”. Since the late ’80s Giannelli started to investigate the Western Human – which he calls the “two-footed animal” – and believes that the humans who belong to that tribe can have huge technological potential but which is mixed with a lot of tension and self-destruction. His first solo exhibition, curated by Gianluca Martians and Anna Lo Presti, was entitled “To Lie or Not to Lie” and was presented at the Palazzo Taverna in Rome.

The retrospective – which features about 25 works created over three years – was conceived and designed as a travel narrative and a sensory, emotional descent through the installations which feature visionary sculpted bodies in resin . Giannelli sees his sculpture as a multifaceted map of the human body that raises questions on issues of ethical consciousness,  genetic mutation, the proliferation of identity, and cloning.

Mario Merz

Paintings and Sculptures by Italian Artist Mario Merz

Born in Milano Merz started drawing during World War II, when he was imprisoned for his activities with the Giustizia e Libertà antifascist group. He experimented with a continuous graphic stroke–not removing his pencil point from the paper. Merz explored the relationship between nature and the subject, until he had his first exhibitions in the intellectually incendiary context of Turin in the 1950s, a cultural climate fed by such writers as Cesare Pavese, Elio Vittorini, and Ezra Pound. He met Italian artist Marisa Merz during his studies in Turin in the 1950s. They were associated with the development of Arte Povera, and both were influenced by each other’s works.

Merz discarded abstract expressionism’s subjectivity in favor of opening art to exterior space: a seed or a leaf in the wind becomes a universe on his canvas. From the mid-1960s, his paintings echoed his desire to explore the transmission of energy from the organic to the inorganic, a curiosity that led him to create works in which neon lights pierced everyday objects, such as an umbrella, a glass, a bottle or his own raincoat. Without ever using ready-made objects as “things” (at least to the extent that the Nouveau Realistes in France did), Merz and his companions drew the guiding lines of a renewed life for Italian art in the global context.