Serie: Large Format Artworks

Technique: Latex on canvas

Size: 235 x 180 cm

Year: 2003

Raphael Sanzio, Italy (1483-1520)

Raphael has historically been considered, along with Leonardo and Michelangelo, as one of the pillars of the Italian Cinquecento, as well as one of the great geniuses of painting of all time.

It should also be noted that to his credit he will have a career as an architect, not excessively known or decisive for the history of art (with the exception of the commission for the continuation of the works of St. Peter's Basilica, which he will briefly be in charge of upon the death of his friend Bramante).

Raphael was summoned to carry out the decoration of the Vatican palatine rooms by Pope Julius II (Pontiff from 1503 to 1513).

In the Stanza of Heliodorus, he carried out, sometimes with the help of his disciples, the scenes of The Expulsion of Heliodorus (1511-1512), The Mass of Bolsena (1512), St. Peter's Liberation (1514), and, already at the time of Pope Leo X, the Encounter of Attila with Leo the Great.

St. Peter's Liberation shows the prince of the apostles and the first pope, miraculously saved from the dungeon thanks to an angel, while the guards lie asleep.

By exalting the light, Rafael confronts the divine of the angel with that of the dawn, the moon, the torches and their reflections on the armor, and even with the natural one that enters from the window below, creating extraordinary effects.

Acts of the Apostles 12, 5-12

At that time King Herod seized on some of the Church to mistreat them.

He made James, Juan's brother, die by the sword. Seeing that the Jews liked this, he also arrested Peter. Those were the days of the Unleavened.

So he seized him, imprisoned him, and entrusted four squads of four soldiers to guard him, with the intention of presenting him before the people after Passover.

Thus, Peter was kept in prison, while the Church prayed insistently for him to God.

When Herod was about to introduce him, that same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains; There were also sentries at the gate guarding the jail.

Suddenly the Angel of the Lord appeared and the cell was filled with light. He gave the angel to Peter in the side, woke him up and said: "Get up quickly."

And the chains fell from his hands. The angel said: "Gird yourself and put on your sandals." He did so. He added: "Put on your mantle and follow me." And he went out following him.

He did not quite realize that what the angel was doing was true, but rather he imagined seeing a vision.

They passed the first and second guard and came to the iron gate that led into the city.

It opened to them by itself. They went out and walked to the end of a street. And suddenly the angel left him.

Peter came to himself and said, "Now I really realize that the Lord has sent his angel and has ripped me out of the hands of Herod and of everything the Jewish people expected."

Aware of his situation, he went to the house of María, Juan's mother, by the nickname Marcos, where many were gathered in prayer.

He knocked on the door and a servant named Rode came out to open it for him; who, recognizing Peter's voice, out of pure joy did not open the door, but ran in to announce that Peter was at the door.

They told her: "You are crazy." But she kept claiming it was true.

Then they said: "It will be your angel." Meanwhile, Pedro kept calling. When they opened it, they saw him, and were stunned.

He waved for them to be quiet and told them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. And he added: "Communicate this to Santiago and the brothers." He left and marched to another place.

Serie: Large Format Artworks

Technique: Latex on canvas

Size: 148 x 260 cm

Year: 2003

William Adolphe Bouguereau (France, 1825-1905)

According to legend, immortalized by Apuleius in his Metamorphosis (The Golden Donkey), Psyche was the youngest of three sisters daughters of an Anatolian king and the most beautiful of them.

Aphrodite, jealous of her beauty, sent her son Eros (Cupid) to shoot her an arrow of oxidized gold, which would make her fall in love with the most horrible and mean man she could find.

However, Eros fell in love with her and threw the arrow into the sea; when Psyche fell asleep, he flew her to his palace.

To avoid the wrath of his mother, once he has Psyche in his palace, Eros always shows up at night, in the dark, and prohibits Psyche from any inquiry into her identity.

Every night, in the dark, they loved each other. One night, Psyche told his lover that he missed his sisters and wanted to see them.

Eros accepted, but also warned her that her sisters will want to end her bliss.

The next morning, Psyche was with her sisters who enviously asked her who her wonderful husband was.

Psyche, unable to explain what her husband was like since she had not seen him, hesitated and told them that he was a young man who was hunting, but ended up confessing the truth, that he really did not know who he was.

Thus, Psyche's sisters convinced her to turn on a lamp in the middle of the night and observe her beloved, since surely he would only be a monster and therefore want to hide his true appearance.

Psyche listens to them, Psyche decided one night to light a lamp. A drop of boiling oil fell on the face of the sleeping Eros, who awoke and left his lover in disappointment.

When Psyche realizes what she has done, she begs Aphrodite to return the love of Eros, but the goddess, spitefully, orders her to perform four tasks, almost impossible for a mortal, before recovering her divine lover.

As a fourth job, Aphrodite demands Psyche to go find a chest in Hades.

When he manages to get there, Persephone, goddess of the afterlife, tells him that what is in the chest is only for Aphrodite.

Psyche, tempted by the power that could give her what was in that chest, forgets that curiosity had already ruined her life once, and opens it, but instead of finding power, she finds eternal sleep.

Psyche falls into the sleeping grass for all eternity, but Eros, pitying, rescues her and solves things.

Later, Aphrodite and Psyche make peace, and remain together with Eros on Olympus.

Etymology of the word psyché

The verb ψυχω means “to blow” and from this verb, ψυχη is the “breath or breath” that the human being exhales upon death. Thus, later it has come to mean "life", which also escapes from the corpse.

Representing the "soul", as an ethereal image of the dead, a kind of figurine or double of the deceased, an eidolon, which goes to the infernal kingdom of Hades; where it would survive in a dark and ghostly way.

According to Homer many times, the psyche flies out of the mouth of the person who dies as if it were a butterfly (which is also written in Greek as psyche); reason, why some people also relate to the butterfly as a Psychopomp.

Serie: Large Format Artworks

Technique: Latex on canvas

Measurements:
The Slander: 115 x 90 cm
The Perfidy: 130 x 100 cm
The Imposture: 155 x 100 cm

Year: 2003

Sandro Boticcelli, Italy 1445-1510

Renaissance painter born in Florence.

His real name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, however, he is known as Boticelli (which in Italian is the diminutive of the word "botijo": which means pot).

By 1470 Botticelli already had his own workshop. He spent most of his life working for the great Florentine families, especially the Medici.

He made paintings with both secular and religious themes and for this reason, in 1481 he was one of the artists called to Rome to work on the decoration of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, where he painted the frescoes "The tests of Moses", "The punishment of the rebels "and" The temptation of Christ. "

He died on May 17, 1510

"The Slander" is Botticelli's last mythological production.

It is unknown who was the client who commissioned it, which has motivated a barrage of hypotheses.

Despite its content, the work must be framed in the transformations that Florence was undergoing at the end of the late Quattrocento of the century that brought the tension and fear before the arrival of the end of the world that the preachers shouted.

The name by which we know this small panel is determined by an accusation of envy by the Greek painter Antiphilos to his colleague Apelles.

He was accused of provoking a revolt against the Egyptian king Ptolemy IV for which he was imprisoned, obtaining his freedom when a true leader of the rebellion declared the painter's innocence.

The king rehabilitated Apelles and granted Antiphilos as a slave, the artist making a work in reference to his case.

The story is known thanks to the poet Luciano, making Botticelli a new version of the matter.

Botticelli presents a good number of characters inside a typically Renaissance palace, with an arcade in the background in which we can appreciate the coffered vaults decorated with various scenes that are repeated in the frieze

Various characters appear in the main group: a young man is the Victim dragged along the ground, naked because he has nothing to hide and in an imploring attitude to put an end to this situation; Slander grabs him by the hair, carrying in his left hand a torch in relation to the way slander spreads like smoke from fire; two beautiful young women braid the hair of Calumny with a white ribbon: Imposture and Perfidy, inseparable companions of Calumny, who under their sweet and serene appearance destroy the victim.

These paintings are, precisely, details of the faces of these three young women, made with the "scraping" or "dry brush" technique.

Serie: Large Format Artworks

Technique: Latex on canvas

Size: 200 x 300 cm

Year: 2003

In ornamental symbology, the lion is assumed to be the sacred depository of knowledge and is considered a symbol of power and sovereignty, also being considered the symbol of Christ the Judge.

It can also represent gold and the sun, in this way the lion is like the sun, which destroys with its great power; but the human being who is able to defeat him will seize that power.

Another ornamental element that decorates this scroll (ornament in the form of a spiral or snail) is the fig leaf.

The highest ideogram of life was originally a fig leaf, and just as the grape has the double meaning of sacrifice and fruitfulness, wine often symbolizes youth and eternal life.

According to Mircea Eliade, the Mother Goddess was originally given the name Vine Goddess Vine, suggesting the inexhaustible source of natural creation.

For this reason, this wash on paper highlights the most characteristic features of both symbolic elements in light and shadow.

It could be condensed into the idea of the union between creation and wisdom, the knowledge that, without rest, evolves in a spiral towards the highest and sublime of the human soul.

Serie: Large Format Artworks

Technique: Latex on canvas

Size: 58 x 75 cm

Year: 2003

Auguste Rodin, France (1840-1917)

Rodin is one of the most important sculptors in the history of modern art.

He was the author of famous works, including "The Thinker", "The Kiss", "The Bronze Age", "Mignon", "Eva" and "Danae", among others.

He was a student of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux at the School of Decorative Arts and of Antoine-Louis Barye at the Museum of Natural History, two sculptors whom he admired and were inspired to some extent.

Due to his modest origins, he was forced to earn a living as a decoration assistant, combining professional work with his dedication to sculpture.

Mignon is a bronze sculpture dating from 1870.

This youthful work, a portrait of Rose Beuret, her companion since 1864, possesses an astonishing firmness of modeling and reveals a penetrating observation of the model's character.

These qualities made Rodin one of the French masters in the art of portraiture.

The present version tries to maintain these characteristics and highlight them through the use of a strong primary color, such as red, for the background and different degrees of intensity of black for the figure, leaving pure white for the lights.

The result is an image of great intensity that highlights the idea of sculptural volume even in the case of a painting.

The economy of color resources accentuates the idea that it is a work thought in three dimensions.