Paradise and Chaos and Paris I

This is my very last mural. I was there on Friday evening to check out the way my ( studio made) varnish had dried and how the mural was lit by newly installed spotlights.

It is located in the very nice rue Madame , in the heart of Paris, quariter Latin ( the prestigious schools and colleges area) between the Jardin du Luxembourg and Place St Sulpice.

My clients have owned an appartment in this street for years and they just bought another one in order to have a direct access from street level.

They totally remodeled the whole space and as part of the lower level had been used and redesigned for offices they needed a strong decorative solution for the stairwell.

They have a passion for XVIIth century flemsih and dutch painters and asked me to work from compositions like this one , from Brueghel.

I did researches, sketches and came up with a pretty big oil sketch. Here it is with superimposed composition geomatrical pattern.

In this part of the composition I chose to represent a "Paradise" scenery similar to the Brueghel's with all sorts of animals, predators and prays "living in harmony".

But as there is a second wall I could not see me apinting the same thing on it.

I took time to meditate about it and had the idea of representing "Paradise" or an appolonian vision of the world on one side and "chaos" or a dyonisian vision of the world on the other .

Here is the sketch for the second wall :

At that point my clients aked me to introduce a statue of Pan (  located in the nearby Jardin du Luxembourg)  in the mural , .

Here is the picture they sent me...

...and here is my version of it, integrated into the landscape:

It was a perfect fit for my concept fot the whole !!

Everything made sense now. As you walk up the stairs, the first thing you see is "Chaos", with a wild nature , a dense view stuffed with trees and bathed in a golden light, animals hidden in bushes and forest and a mythological god who seems to celebrate the wilderness.

On the other side, "Paradise", in a much more opened landscape, a soothing evening light , flowers and animals resting together by a cascading stream...

I do not have very good pictures of the whole thing yet but here are few that I took right before and after installation... "Paradise" side first:

I swear this one is for real. WE really had quite a few air bubbles to fix and there really was one by the butt of the lion that Malek is shown here filling it up with diluted glue in the seringe :-)

Detail of the parrots in "Paradise"

"Chaos" before...

...and right after isntallation as we were painting the two medallions we added on the crown molding.

This was, again, a typical "decorative painter's work". Indeed, I had to study and understand a style (Brueghel's), connect it to the work of painters of the same period  ( from Rubens and Carraci to Poussin, Lorrain and the likes) , adapt the composition and technique to a pretty big scale ( this was totally painted in oils) and use specialized craftsmanship to install it seamlessly in strong raking light.

I was glad when it was over, even more so as my clients were really happy , I think I can say that I realized one of  their dreams for this new home.

Workshop in Bergamo.

There are some places whose mere name , for some mysterious reason, attract you.

I have always loved the name " Bergamo". An italianized version of the german "berg" ( mountain), a promise of richness and balance, strength and beauty.

A few years ago , on the way back from Venice we had a glimpse of the city from the highway and it confirmed my attraction.

Finally, in 2009 we went there for Salon ( the International gathering of Decorative Painters) and spent a week painting and enjoying the beauties of this unique city.

A perfect mix of italian art  and alpine panorama , a definition of paradise on earth for me.

My friend Lucretia Moroni, from the current generation of the ancient and locally famous Moroni family, asked me to take part to a class program she wanted to organize there.

No need to say I was honored and excited by the project.

The first workshop took place last year in November.

As we had access to the fabulous Palazzo Moroni I decided that we would spend a full day in the building. 

In the morning, Guia Arnolfi made a brillant guided visit for our seven students.

Right after this I lectured about the perspective rules, and used the gorgeous examples we could study in detail  to tell about the tricks and mysteries of the  illusionistic ceilings of the palazzo.

The game was to detect the vanishing points and guess which technical decisions the artists had made in each case. How they had built up their compositions, linked them up with the frescoes of the walls and anticipated on how the viewers would move in each room and admire their paintings.

We also studied the relationship between what we could observe and some examples from an old italian book on painted ceilings of Genova.

During the afternoon we made sketches of different architectural elements that we would use later on , like balusters, pilasters and various types of ornate moldings.

The focus was mostly put on one part of  the composition that we would use as a basis for the rest of the workshop.

After this we spent two days in a studio at Scuola Fantoni, downtown Bergamo.

The second day was devoted to reproducing, from scratch ( no transfer, no projection, pure drafting) a composition inspired from one we studied particularly in the palazzo.

We started painting on the last day...

 and all the students completed half of the full design, whcih was the goal I had set up for the group
Here are examples of students' work..

It was nice to see people proud of their work and maybe a little surprised by what they managed to learn and achieve in three days.

This is the painting  I did and used to demonstrate.

This was short but I felt it was a good workshop and I think we all enjoyed it.

One day studying, one day drawing, one day painting ...I like that.

Singeries

 A Singerie is, according to french dictionnaries" a mural decoration, painting or tapestry whose main figures or subjects are monkeys". The most wellknown reference of this type of ornamentation is the Grande Singerie de Chantilly painted by the uncontested master of this specialty , Huet, and recently restaured .
It is full of humor and of the playfull irony that characterises our Louis XV style.
It is one of the most original expressions of a time period and of its mood. The theme itself and the distance and reflexion it implies on human behaviors and attitudes , but also the  technique used by the ornemanists of the time are evidences of their thought process and of the distance they could take on their own practice.


They are usually very well executed but also full of freedom and inventiveness...I have tried to keep this spirit alive in my copies or recreation of Singeries...

This is the first version of a singerie that I called the "The flute player"(casein on gessoed linen)

Second version...

...this one was painted on paper instead of gessoed canvas like the first two...

...last version at a slightly smaller scale.

First version of another singerie I also painted several times for different clients, this one is called "The Dancers"...

....another version on thick linen, lime based paint background and quite bigger ( 6 ft high)...

...detail of central motif...

...on paper...

"Singes musiciens" also quite big ...

...detail of central figures...

...ornament on the right side...

...and on the left.

This one was called "Le Marchand d'Orvietan",painted on paper glued up on canvas...

...detail.

This one had no name and belonged a series of four ...

...casein on paper.

"Le singe au Violon"...

Here is a pair of singeries painted on silver wax over gesso,.

This one is called "Le Dresseur". It is painted with oils on  gessoed canvas glued up in a boiserie that was done by my friends from Elusio.