Tag: italy

Turrisi

Turrisi, Italy’s Phallic Bar, Castelmola, Italy

Massimo, the café’s third generation owner, recounts the history of this bar located in Castelmola, near Taormina. “The bar was opened in 1947 by my grandfather. At the time, it wasn’t exactly a bar as it is now, it was more of a post-war bazaar, a souvenir shop-cum-cafe, where customers were served almond wine, traditional to this part of Sicily. This area was historically a winery for the Greeks, where wine was sweetened to be transported. In the mid-19th century, Taormina, and in general this area of Sicily, was far more progressive than many other parts of the country and even Europe”.

“Painters looked back back to the Hellenistic period, depicting nudes, many of which were carried out here in Castelmola, The German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden, for example, chose this area as the setting for many of his nudes of young boys. The lax liberal ways of bohemian artists and openness to sexual trends were a manner of life here, and my grandfather wanted to show this through the bar’s decor.”- Massimo

Nicola Verlato

 

Paintings and Drawings by Nicola Verlato

Nicola Verlato was born in Verona and began painting at a very early age, learning from Fra’ Terenzio, a painter in the monastery of Franciscan monks of Lonigo. He was trained in classical music and studied lute and composition at the conservatories of Verona and Padua. He studied architecture at University IUAV in Venice from 1984 to 1990.

Around 28 years old, Veriato started to be involved in contemporary art scene, and, consequentially, to show in numerous gallery in Italy and abroad in solo and group shows. In 1996, Verlato moved to Milan where he created his well grounded notoriety in Italy. In the same year, he exhibited his work at XII Quadrinnale at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. In 2004, Verlato relocated from Milan to New York, New York. While living in New York, he was a professor teaching composition and painting courses at New York Academy of Art. His works are in the permanent collection at MART in Trentino, MUSAC in León, and MUDIMA Foundation in Milano.

Nicola Verlato creates his works through an articulated process that makes use of classical techniques as well as modern technology such as 3D Modeling programs such as Maya and ZBrush. In a 2012 interview, Nicola Verlato stated “ The use of computers didn’t change my approach to painting, it just expanded the scope of what I can introduce in the representations and how much control I have over it.”

The Uffizi Wrestlers

The Uffizi Wrestlers, Marble, Florence, Italy

The Uffizi Wrestlers is a famous Roman marble sculpture copied after a lost Greek original of the 3rd century BC. The sculpture was found in Rome near the gate of St. John Lateran in April, 1583. It is now housed in the Uffizi collection, Florence. The two young men are engaged in the sport called Pankration, similar to the present-day sport of ‘mixed martial arts’. The two figures are clutching one another, and one seems to have the upper hand, holding the other down and twisting his arm back. Their muscular structure is very defined and exaggerated due to their physical and sustained effort.

Giorgio Dante

 

Paintings by Giorgio Dante

Born in 1982, Giorgio Dante is an Italian figurative painter living and working in Rome, Italy. After graduating in 2006 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Dante distinguished himself as an artist of contemporary revival of classical painting.

Dante’s work emphasizes traditional methods and techniques of old masters. Italian art inspired him to paint since his childhood and influenced his choice to pursue an academic figurative style, focused on 19th century European painting influenced by William Bouguereau, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Lord Leighton, John William Waterhouse, Paul Delaroche, and Jan Jaques Henner

 

Wrestlers

Lysippus, “Wrestlers”, First Century BC, Marble, Height 89 cm, Uffizi Palace, Florence, Italy

Rarely did the architectural finds of the 16th century recover the large groups from ancient statuary in full, but the “Wrestlers” is an exception to this rule. The work was discovered, along with the famous group of Niobids, in 1583, in a vineyard owned by the Tommasini family near Porta San Giovanni in Rome. It represents a unique example, since no further copies are known.

In Roman times, this estate was part of the Horti Lamiani, sumptuous gardens on the top of the Esquiline Hill belonging to the residence of consul Lucius Aelius Lamia. Treasures such as the “Lancellotti Discobolus”, now at the National Museum of Rome) and the “Esquiline Venus”,now in the collection of the Capitoline Museums, were found in the same garden.

The “Wrestlers” depicts two men with pronounced muscular structure, engaged in a wrestling bout, rendered particularly realistic by the firm anatomies and good proportions of the subjects. The balance of the bodies is such that the outcome of the match is not revealed. The lost heads were added during restoration, ordered by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, who purchased the work.

Exhibited for around a century at Villa Medici in Rome, the sculpture was transported to Florence in 1677, where further restoration work certainly led to the recovery of the top wrestler’s right arm.  The marble group, which dates to the 1st century B.C., is a Roman copy of a lost original in bronze from the 3rd century B.C.. The sculpture can be attributed to Lysippus, a sculptor renowned for many bronze and marble works and, in particular, for his portrait of Alexander the Great.