Giovan Battista Zelotti, Allegory of Libra (particolre), Villa Emo in Fanzolo, dressing room of the grotesques, c. 1565. When the dungeons (caves) of Nero’s Domus Aurea were found in Rome around 1480, the effect on the painters of the time, and Raphael in particular, was a harbinger of unstoppable changes for the future visual alphabet. Those caves had, in fact, wall decorations which combined arboreal and floral elements with animal or human presences, often giving rise to beings of […]
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette (detail), 1767-68, Wallace Collection, London, photo Alonso de Mendoza The provenance of an author’s language, from a previous tradition, is therefore part of the dynamics of normalization (a process whereby an innovative or exceptional phenomenon, over several decades, spreads in the popular imagination), although it does not deprive it of the research content that instead continues. He takes up a discourse that comes to him from afar. He discovers that he is […]
Edward Munch, Puberty (detail), 1894-95, Oslo National Gallery The works of Edward Munch (1863-1944) have fascinated me more and more over the years. In Puberty of 1894-95, certain formal and perspective distortions typical of his mature language, to which this painting belongs, are not present. This work has a more intimate or apparently less explosive character than his other more violent and strident works, both in terms of colour and formal forcing. The explosiveness of this painting resides in […]
Vincent van Gogh, Cornfield with Ravens Flight, 1890 Up to now, in this blog, I have introduced the spatio-temporal trends of composition (https://www.danilosantinelli.it/danilos-blog/spatio-temporal-trend-of-the-composition/), the aspects of basic geometric forms (https://www.danilosantinelli.it/danilos-blog/aspects-of-basic-geometric-shapes/) and the aspects of colour (https://www.danilosantinelli.it/danilos-blog/color-aspects/), all of which are fundamental to conducting the analysis of a visual text from a grammatical point of view, given that, as has already been said several times, images use their own grammar that allows them to express themselves and make clear to […]
In one of my previous speeches I dealt with the spatio-temporal trends inherent in the composition (https://www.danilosantinelli.it/danilos-blog/spatio-temporal-trend-of-the-composition/), for the sake of completeness I would now like to introduce some aspects concerning the three basic geometric forms, which are also precious compositional tools: square, circle and triangle. The square, distinguished by its four equal sides and angles, has no motion, it seems to close on itself, apparently motionless in its solidity suggested by the right angles. The stability and […]
Anonymous, View of an ideal city (detail), 1490-99ca This, which I am presenting here, is the first in a series of interventions aimed at the dissemination of visual grammars. An aspect that, as I said in the introduction to the blog (https://www.danilosantinelli.it/danilos-blog/two-or-three-things-about-the-blog/), is closely linked to the analysis of the characteristic aspects of postmodernism, given the massive use of images and their wide dissemination implemented by postmodernism as a privileged linguistic vehicle and attributable to its characteristics of speed […]
