P. IVA 04220391207 © 2022 Giulio Pedaci
Digital painting:
what are we talking about?
A necessary premise: artificial intelligence has nothing to do here. Here we make use of knowledge, dexterity, flair, but above all we make use of sensitivity. The sensitivity that makes our inner chords of emotion vibrate when, for example, we admire a beautiful sunset or when we listen to a particularly moving story or melody. Sensitivity can inspire us with an idea, a vision. We have much more than the canonical five senses: we have a universe within. We just need to slow down, to observe, to listen -- to hear ourselves. Only then can we savor all the infinite beauty that surrounds us.
My inspiring Muses par excellence are classical and symphonic music. They represent my North Star. When melody and words touch my soul, they raise it to sublime heights and lead me to turn my gaze toward enchantment. All this is transformed into a digital painting, each with its own story that turns into a message I want to convey. Each of my paintings has a title that tells something beyond the image I represent and a subtitle that refers to the aria or symphony that inspired me. The painting, title, and melody tell a story. Images, to be truly seen, must be heard.
Prologue
This painting represents the lowest point
of a phase in my life, when oblivion
was about to swallow me.When everything felt lost, I realized I needed to pause,
listen to myself, and walk through the cracks.
That path led me to paint “Rebirth – A Tribute to Magritte,”
an image of a return as fragile as it is fierce, toward the light.
“Prologue” figuratively closes the circle of an inner journey
marked by disorientation and transformation.
Only by facing the mirror of our fears
can we pass through the flames unharmed.
Painting inspired by social themes
Painting inspired by social themes
Rebirth
(Homage to Magritte)
Painting made at a particular time in my life when darkness and anxiety were corrupting my being.
The oblivion inside me stemmed from choosing to close in on myself at the very worst time.
That's when I realized that I could get out of it by asking the best part of me for help.
I chose to paint two identical mannequins in different poses to represent a person in the mirror.
With a simple, yet wonderful gesture, one guides the other to reconnect with the universe,
a place of beauty and enchantment, filled with light and color.
And of silence.
Painting inspired by Bonaveri mannequins
Painting inspired by Bonaveri mannequins
Homage to Bologna
(Dalla: Piazza Grande)
The choice to be inspired by the three Graces to pay homage to the city
that welcomed me forty years ago was a natural one.
The three daughters of Zeus symbolize splendor, joy and prosperity.
The veil that encircles them in the embrace of the central figure reinforces the sense of union.
All of this is Bologna.
The veil painted “her” red is my dedication to Her.
Painting inspired by: The Three Graces - Antonio Canova
Painting inspired by: The Three Graces - Antonio Canova
Free will
(Lennon: Imagine)
Colors.
Colors that unite and divide.
Colors that symbolize states of mind,
define races and affiliations.
The sum of all colors can create light, but at the same time darkness.
It is up to us to decide how to combine them, whether to do so through light beams
or by using powder pigments.
Free will is color and no one can ever desaturate it.
Painting inspired by: The Three Graces - Antonio Canova
Painting inspired by: The Three Graces - Antonio Canova
Lullaby my love...
(Brahms: Lullaby)
Words do not have enough strength to tell stories that cannot be believed.
Stories about little angels who watch the world with the purity of their hearts,
until it manifests its cruelty to them.
The goblins, princesses and knights thus become
just lies drawn in books that no one will ever leaf through again.
When a little angel falls,
even the ogres and witches in fairy tales close their eyes so they cannot see.
Painting inspired by social themes
Painting inspired by social themes
Thy kingdom come
(Verdi - Requiem: Dies Irae)
“Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven…”
Words that leave a bitter taste in the mouth.
We yearn for peace, but we foment wars.
Innocent victims have now become an
annoying breath of wind that disrupts our customs.
Come then our kingdom.
Therefore, our will be done.
But there is no sky. There is only earth.
Painting inspired by: Corpus Hypercubus - Salvador Dalì
Painting inspired by: Corpus Hypercubus - Salvador Dalì
The silence of the guilty
(Puccini - Madame Butterfly: Silent chorus)
Violence against women and femicide are endemic plagues of our society.
I wanted to make a painting that would fully render the anguish, the terror, but most of all the loneliness of women.
It is a raw subject, just as raw as my complaint had to be.
Our silence leaves the woman alone, and this makes us complicit.
In the painting, the woman is stripped of her robes and slumped in a posture
that fully renders the brute violence with which she was landed.
The floor is checkered, which symbolizes an unfortunately repetitive pattern.
We feel sorrow for the victim, anger for the perpetrator, we wonder how these horrors can still happen,
until those questions, little by little fade away along with the names of the victims,
to be replaced by other names, other victims, other perpetrators.
The silent chorus from Puccini's opera “Madama Butterfly,” used as a subtitle,
expresses all the pain of the protagonist, symbolically deprived even of speech.
Let us break this pattern that leaves women alone, to suffer silently.
Their silence will echo in our shouting....
Painting inspired by social themes
Painting inspired by social themes
The wait
(Sono andati?)
The opening score of “La Bohème” is a hymn
to youth, carefreeness and zest for life.
Everything changes because of the discovery of a
tragic fate that nothing and no one can ever avert.
I was inspired by the Work of Pietro Canonica to
portray those who rebel against that destiny, as well as those who resign themselves to such a fate while waiting for the inevitable.
Rodolfo, aware that he cannot offer Mimì anything
but his love, drives her away with the hope of giving her
one last chance. But Love cannot be forgotten.
Mimì eventually returns to die in his arms.
The wait is over.
Only time remains for one last,
heartbreaking, sublime farewell from Mimì.
“I have many things I want to say to you
or just one, but as big as the sea,
as deep and endless as the sea...
You are my love... and all my life!...”
Painting inspired by: Abyss - Pietro Canonica
Painting inspired by: Abyss - Pietro Canonica
The fragile loves
(Ranzato - The Land of Bells: The sun has set)
The “Land of Bells” is an operetta full of misunderstandings
and love entanglements, but not only that.
The plot is tinged with melancholy when a melody timidly pops up
in the first tête à tête between Hans and Nela «Why why upset...», poignantly manifests itself in the aria «The sun has gone out...»
and dramatically concludes the narrative when it accompanies
Nela’s desperate cry for her shattered dream of love
«He left... and without telling me anything».
The “Land of Bells” is more than an operetta for me, and this
awareness led me to represent it by drawing on the myth of
Cupid and Psyche, the highest interpretation of love, but also a
metaphor for the balance between feeling (eros) and reason (psyche).
In Canova’s sculpture, Psyche makes a gift of her soul
(a butterfly) to her beloved. But the butterfly is also a symbol
of ephemerality. A bell takes the place of the butterfly,
thus becoming the emblem of a broken harmony.
«The sun has gone out (...) all is silence around»
Painting inspired by: Cupid and Psyche standing - Antonio Canova
Painting inspired by: Cupid and Psyche standing - Antonio Canova
The fascination
of the ungodly
(Verdi - Nabucco: Ouverture)
Nabucco and Abigaille in this opera
are the architects of nefarious vicissitudes.
Throughout the centuries many men
have written, and are writing, their name
with the indelible blood of their own popul.
The fascination with these men
is the result of convenience and connivance.
How deplorable is the ungodly as the author
of abominations, how wretched is he who
has elevated him to the status of a god.
Zophar the Naamathite took to saying, (...) Knowest thou not that
from ever since man was placed on earth, the triumph of the wicked
is brief and the joy of the perverse is of an instant? Even if he raised
his stature up to heaven and his head touched the clouds, like dung
he would be swept away forever and those who had seen him
would say, “Where is he?”
He would vanish like a dream, and be found no more, vanishing
like a night vision. (...) Giobbe - 20
Painting inspired by: Dying Gladiator - Pierre Julien
Painting inspired by: Dying Gladiator - Pierre Julien
Infinity in her eyes
(Rossini - The Barber of Seville: Ouverture)
Rosina is awareness and resilience.
Rosina is sensitivity, accompanied
by a vision that goes beyond appearances.
Rosina is mischief and sweetness,
but also strength and determination.
For her, everything is obvious
before it even manifests itself.
Rosina’s gaze overcomes barriers,
whatever they may be.
Rosina does not care if your name is
Lindoro or if you are the Count of Almaviva.
All Rosina needs is the certainty of her heart.
Rosina is all the Women.
My painting is meant to be a tribute to Women.
Women who give us life, who accompany us
in our growth, who support us, who counsel us,
who look beyond the boundaries of our gaze.
It is only by turning our eyes into theirs
that the beauty of the whole universe is manifested.
Painting inspired by: Dancer with finger on chin - Antonio Canova
Painting inspired by: Dancer with finger on chin - Antonio Canova
Original sin
(Deh, narra quella storia funesta)
The title so contrasting with the figure
of a mother holding her child,
is the result of the drama that Azucena evokes
in the aria of Part II - Scene One and which,
precisely because of that event as horrible as
it is inconceivable, makes her the actual tragic
protagonist of Verdi’s Opera.
The desire for revenge that becomes madness,
that destroys the purest Love
and clouds any possibility of salvation,
echoes even in the last act,
in the words uttered even in the face
of the death of that wronged son of hers.
Painting inspired by: Virgin and child - St. James Cathedral
Painting inspired by: Virgin and child - St. James Cathedral
Wrong love
(Vivaldi - The Four Seasons: Winter)
I painted this painting as a cry of pain and horror for a phenomenon that is as vile as it is ignoble,
unfortunately widespread in an unacceptable way: feminicide.
I was inspired by Bernini's sculpture, adapting it to the message I wanted to send.
Pluto I painted him as if he were cold, grave stone, like the soul that moves these dastardly cowards
who take advantage of their bodily predominance to subdue, abuse, kill.
Instead, I painted Proserpina as if she were a real woman, with velvety white skin.
Proserpina tries in vain to escape from the stone man's inexorable, unholy embrace.
Wrong Love tells the story of him and a broken promise.
It also tells the story of her and an illusion of life that, despite herself,
will one day become nightmare and oblivion.
"I accept you as my bride, I promise to be faithful to you always,
in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health,
and to love and honor you all the days of my life."
Painting inspired by: The Rape of Proserpine - Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Painting inspired by: The Rape of Proserpine - Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Confutatis Maledictis
(Mozart - Requiem: Confutatis)
I made this painting shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
after seeing the images of the massacre in Bucha, Mariupol
and all the massacres perpetrated in the name of power,
not only in that region of the planet.
We had almost emerged from a planetary pandemic
that had risked taking us into apocalyptic scenarios,
but just when there was a glimmer of hope,
everything fell back heavily amid the deafening din
of the screams of one people, of many peoples.
In Gaetano Cellini's work, man is crushed to the ground,
overwhelmed by pain. I wanted to give a different message
in my painting. Although inspired by this work,
the man I depicted is trying to get up again,
and to make this mean, the rock in his hands
becomes a canvas that he rips to create a void to fill,
and that void has the color of hope: white.
On white you can redraw a better world,
and W. A. Mozart's Confutatis is the perfect aria
for this depiction of hope of mine.
When the accused are confounded,
and doomed to flames of woe,
call me among the blessed.
Painting inspired by: Humanity versus evil - Gaetano Cellini
Painting inspired by: Humanity versus evil - Gaetano Cellini
I had a dream
(Chopin - Prelude in E Minor op 28 no 4)
This painting was created as a denunciation against xenophobia.
To do this, I drew on Martin Luther King's famous phrase "I have a dream"
and imagined what the leader of the civil rights movement for African Americans would say today.
Inspired by Canova's famous sculpture representing Pauline Borghese,
an emblem of nobility, a prerogative historically reserved for people of Caucasian complexion,
I repainted it with one small but significant difference: skin color.
In this picture, however, Pauline African's gaze looks at a still distant horizon.
Hence the title.
"I hate racial discrimination in the most intense way and in all its manifestations.
I have fought it all my life, I fight it now and I will fight it until the end of my days."
Nelson Mandela
Painting inspired by: Pauline Borghese as Venus - Antonio Canova
Painting inspired by: Pauline Borghese as Venus - Antonio Canova
Farewell, of the past
(Beethoven - Symphony No. 7: II movement)
The title, the image, everything would lead one to think of something tragic.
Instead, to me it is an ode to hope. Leaving something behind is not always a symptom of sadness.
The Corradini woman taken from this perspective and which I have reproduced in painting speaks to me of rebirth.
Her body with her chest outstretched upward, her arms open and welcoming, tell me of an evolution:
there is, yes, something being left behind, but there is also the will to move forward,
to take back life by doing so with vigor and momentum. This I saw during the pandemic,
and the symphony I was listening to by Beethoven conveyed precisely this image to me.
Painting inspired by: Modesty - Antonio Corradini
Painting inspired by: Modesty - Antonio Corradini
The unexpected guest
(Mozart - Symphony No. 25: I movement)
Perspective is a fundamental part of a story:
by changing the former, the narrative changes accordingly.
This framing and this cut always aroused my interest.
I was no longer seeing the David, but I was seeing narratives, moments -- a surprise.
The surprise of something that was happening unbeknownst to the protagonist and his reaction.
A human reaction in an artfully shaped block of marble.
I decided to put a real eye in the painting while preserving the sculptural material,
just to tell the story that David whispered in my ear.
Painting inspired by: David - Michelangelo Buonarroti
Painting inspired by: David - Michelangelo Buonarroti
In the mirror
Simple reflection on how we relate to others,
how we see ourselves and how we would like others to perceive us.
The treatment of the body painted in a natural way,
the way I have graphically treated the face
(which deliberately references a geisha),
is nothing more than a representation of what the modern world demands of us and what we are happy to give it:
a representation of ourselves.
Painting inspired by social themes
Painting inspired by social themes
P. IVA 04220391207 © 2022 Giulio Pedaci