Ahlivianne's Fan-Fic Blog

Aha

I don’t know what Palizzi was trying to say, exactly - if he was just fascinated by the stark colours, the opposition of life and death, the obvious significance of the historical moment. Or maybe, like many men of his generation, maybe he did see the bitter irony of this scene: the uneducated labourer as a symbol of the failure of history (of human society). Because as much as we all want to believe in it, there is no constant push towards Good; progress is not inevitable. 

(There she was, the Pompeian lady, living in the prosperous town of a cosmoplitan empire. She was probably bilingual, bought her silks from Eastern traders, her amber jewelry from the Baltic nations, entertained her husband’s guests with witty conversation about Plato and Horace. And two thousand years later, here she is - her descendant: working barefoot for next to nothing, probably married off at thirteen, and staring uncomprehending at the greatness surrounding her.)

What @awed-frog missed is that in 1865, this woman would have been living in close proximity to noblemen and villas and estates and maybe even worked in vineyards during the picking season. She may have daughters who work in the kitchens of those villas and estates. And inside those villas and estates you would find rich Italian women, still wearing silks from the east, amber from the Baltic nations, entertaining her husband’s guests with witty conversation about Dante and Machiavelli. Posing for portraits with artists only the very wealthy could afford.

(And if we look closer still, at the mural on the wall of that Pompeiian lady, you might catch a glimpse of the illiterate slaves and servant girls, standing just out of frame, working barefoot for next to nothing, probably married off at thirteen, staring uncomprehending at the silks and amber that could put food on her family’s table for a year, and yet are just pretty rocks and fabric)

(Okay, the rotating ceilings were quite nice, but that doesn’t really make up for the casual torture, casual viciousness and casual cruelty that were on display in virtually every aspect of Roman life.)

Still - Palizzi was a classically trained painter of the late 19th century, Iso ’m sure Rome would have been an ideal of sorts for him. And: you have to look at these early archaeological digs through the lens of Italy recently became a unified nation - for the first time since the end of the Roman empire. On top of that, in the region of Naples there was an ongoing war against the ‘Northern’ regime and Palizzi, who devoted most of his art to portraying (and thus deliberately or indirectly romanticizing) Neapolitan culture and traditions, certainly had an opinion about it.

(I honestly don’t know enough about this painter to guess at it, though. He was born in the Abruzzo; maybe he was resentful about how Italian unity had been ‘forced’ on the Southern regions, or maybe he would have preferred the South to abandon its dated monarchic ideals and step into the modern world. Depending on which it was, the interpretation of this painting changes dramatically. Is this girl rediscovering Neapolitan greatness, and how the region was a pearl of the Roman Empire, or is she looking in dismay at a wheel that just won’t break - at some distant mistress who looks just like the woman scorning and oppressing her now?

There’s also the possibility this painting was a commission, which would mean most of this analysis would concern the commissioner, not the painter.)

Jason Anderson

British artist Jason Anderson creates colorful abstract paintings composed of pixelated swatches of pastel-toned oil paint. Up-close, the artist’s paintings look like blocky layers of shapes and color; but, from afar, his scenes—featuring cityscapes, roads, trains, and marinas—are revealed.

Anderson began his career as a stained glass apprentice, where he worked on restoring the windows of cathedrals. He soon progressed onto designing the glass murals himself, where he learned how to break down subject matter into “jigsaws” of colored sections. This approach still shines through in his paintings today—complex scenes are brought to life with simple shapes and careful consideration to hue and tone.

Dans le Midi, 1910, Armand Guillaumin

Marron et rose… Ma nouvelle obsession 👌