Italian Artist Sebastiano Ricci

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Howdy! On a visit to the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, last month, I “rediscovered” an Italian artist named Sebastiano Ricci. Inspiring and intimidating other artists can be and I know that I must learn how to work faster. I cannot keep up with my brain! I have so many ideas in my head about art and mathematics in composition that I seem to be finding more and more examples of thoughtfully designed shapes, especially with the figure. Seek and ye shall find . . . an idea as old as mankind.



“Flora”
Sebastiano Ricci
125.3 cm x 153.7 cm (49 5/16 in. x 60 1/2 in.)
Oil on canvas, circa 1712-1716
Part of the Suida-Manning Collection

In Ricci's “Flora” (shown here) I noticed that the angelic figures in the painting surrounded the main figure of the woman in a circular pattern, the positions of their bodies and limbs leading the eye around her and thereby emphasizing her as the subject of the painting. The sign at the Blanton explained what is going on:

"In Ovid's Fasti, the nymph Chloris is seduced by the West Wind, Zephirus, and renamed Flora, goddess of flowers and spring. An important Roman deity, she was associated with voluptuousness. This painting renders the moment before her seduction: as Flora flirts with one putto and suggestively grasps the stem of an iris, Zephirus approaches from behind, indicating his quarry and cautioning silence to another putto. At the right, a vessel spills over with blossoms that portend the result of their union and celebrate their namesake. The design is so equilibrated, the rhythm so elegant, and the handling so rich that a quotation from antique statuary -- the Kneeling Venus -- appears seamless. The painting recalls the great mythological works of sixteenth-century Venice."

Another oil painting that I really enjoy on a much simpler arrangement of shapes is “Venus and Cupid” painted by Ricci in 1700. I like the giant sweeping “S” curve of the gesture of Venus, especially that long and slow-curving leg. It makes me want to ride a sled over snow! And I like the lighting with just enough shadow shapes to keep me interested. But one of my favorite parts is how seemingly natural the “modesty device” comes across -- that lovely white bird whose wing tones are light enough to do the job while the interaction between the two doves hardly makes you notice the function of the one.



If you would like to see more of Sebastiano Ricci’s paintings and read more about attributing art to dead artists, please read my my latest art newsletter

For a while now, I have been working almost every morning and again in the evenings for as many hours as I can stand to be outdoors on my marble sculpture “Gymnast.”. While I have written about various parts of my progress, I have been working here and there on other parts as well, such as her hair, her hands, and refining that difficult-to-reach inner area between her piked torso and legs. My students and colleagues have often heard me say that we tend to draw, paint, or sculpt ourselves. This is not a bad thing, in my view, it is simply part of our individuality. We see the faces and shapes of our family members more than anyone else’s. I suspect these shapes are imprinted into our memories before we even become aware of such things.

I have been fighting this a bit in my marble carving. She keeps having a short torso and she’s got some pretty ambitious hips for the size of the rest of her figure. So, while I work the rest of the composition, I am still trying to carve away the abdomen area and shape the forms there.

Unfortunately, I now have cat-sitting duty away from my studio and while I will take some art with me, I will be using this other home to withdraw a bit and focus on finishing the book I am writing on my life as a streetpainter in Florence, Italy.

So, I am taking a holiday from this blog for the next two weeks or so. I hope you get to swim in an ocean, sea, or river and enjoy this summer heat. I am looking forward to doing that next summer, but for now, I have too much work to do!

Take care and do not give up on me -- I will finish this stone carving in 2011 before I go back to Italy!
Ciao, ciao,
Kelly Borsheim

Saint Agatha Lorenzo Lippi Blanton Museum

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Here is another “Boobs on a Platter” painting. Not sure why I am fascinated by these, perhaps because the whole thing seems so bizarre to me. In this painting of Saint Agatha circa 1838-44, a woman holds a sharp scissors in her hands as she gazes out of the canvas. A platter with two nude breasts on it (perky, perfectly round, and looking up!) sits on a surface in front of her. She is lushly draped and beautifully rendered.

Long ago, paintings sometimes included a timeline of a story in the imagery. For example, the main large scene in a work might depict one specific moment in a couple’s life, while a background image of the same couple was intended to show either the past or the future. This technique of repetition of subjects was understood and read correctly by the art-viewing public.



In the case of this portrait painting by Lorenzo Lippi (Florence, Italy, 1606-1665), his subject Saint Agatha is a whole woman. However, the “platter of boobs” is a repetition that gives the viewer a clue as to the horrible future of torture that awaits her. How would you enjoy severed (or any) boobs being your identifying symbol?

This oil on canvas painting “Saint Agatha” is part of the Suida-Manning Collection in the collection of The Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. It is a gorgeous painting and still in very good condition. Here is what they have posted next to this painting:

“Agatha was an early Christian martyr whose fate is here made vivid. The vividness owes not just to the cruel evidence of her torture: the picture’s scale, sharp illumination, and alluring psychology make the subject intensely present and engaging. Routine in portrayals of the kind, Agatha’s attributes and apparently unharmed physical condition here seem inconsistent and disturbing. The painting’s lovely design, rare hues and transparent layering of pigment in the draperies stand in further ironic contrast to the ostensible subject.

Half-length female figures of devotional or allegorical subject but incorporating such prurience were popular in mid-seventeenth-century Florence, partly as a conservative response to the extroverted, fully Baroque decoration of Pietro da Cortona in the Palazzo Pitti. Lippi cultivated is own idiom by returning to the precise description and sterling character of Santi di Tito’s paintings. Previously attributed to Orazio Riminaldi, and earlier Caravaggesque painter active in Pisa, this Saint Agatha has been recently been described as “one of Lippi’s most fascinating religious personalities.”

I was delighted to have been selected by artist Michael Guilmet to have one of my paintings (Songbird) featured in his video series “Feast Paintings” This is the Spring 2011 video.
http://www.feastpaintings.com/
Enjoy!