Page 6 - Italian American Herald - July 2021

6 ITALIANAMERICANHERALD.COM | JULY2021 ITALIAN-AMERICANHERALD EXPLORING PARADISE
In the world of art and architecture, Italy is the land of the giants
A towering achievement by Michelangelo: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the official residence of the pope, in Vatican City.
By Robert Damien Santagata
Works of fine art are, and have always been, hot commodities. The Greeks and Romans all respected, revered and hungered for beautiful, evocative artwork that filled their eyes, hearts, and souls with bliss. They spent vast sums of money commissioning and/or acquiring the greatest artworks
from the past and present. In Renaissance Florence, one need only look to the powerful Medicis, arguably history’s greatest and most generous patrons, collectors and admirers
of the arts.
Michelangelo’s career was “launched”
by the Medicis; he even resided in their Florentine Palazzo for a time, studying
the works of the ancients and knowing
that someday he would surpass them all
in brilliance. The Medicis were fabulously wealthy, and they, in turn, enriched the greatest artistic talent of all time. But
that’s another article – all of the divine Michelangelo’s works are housed in museums and, in a sense, out of reach for even the wealthiest, most powerful collectors. They are not on the auction block, except perhaps a few of his sketches.
Most of the greatest Renaissance art, for that matter, works by Leonardo, Botticelli, Titian, Correggio, Raphael, and countless others, are safely housed in the world’s
great museums and galleries. But there is
still plenty of artwork to be acquired. Art from all corners of the globe – Europe, Asia, the United States, Africa, Latin America
– is peddled by the big auction houses: Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Butterfield & Butterfield, etc. Collectors with deep pockets, lofty expectations, and high hopes descend like ravenous seagulls upon auctions that are held around the world with the hope of scoring
a little masterwork. A Cezanne, perhaps ...
or a Van Gogh. A Warhol, Kandinsky, or
De Chirico. The list is long and illustrious. The final bids are often beyond the average person’s ability to fathom.
The greatest producers and repositories of Western civilization’s art – Italy and France – have given the world so much to admire and enjoy, to feast our eyes upon in amazement at, for instance, a glorious Tintoretto, a dreamy Monet, a dramatic Caravaggio. Indeed, Italy alone holds 80 percent of Western civilization’s art and architectural treasures, and the movements
and ideas of France have set the standard and dominated the art world for the better part of the past two centuries. Remarkable. Consider some of the greatest eras of art:
the Italian Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classicism, Impressionism. They were either born in or inspired by these two magnificent countries: cultural powerhouses, heavyweights, and, at times throughout history, artistic bullies.
But what is hot and sought after and selling at the auctions these days? And, for that matter, what talent is out there waiting to be tossed into the limelight for the world’s art lovers to fawn over?
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – most of us have heard of him – is heavily sought after and sold. Besides being a master of the palette and brush, he was quite the capitalist, having once said to an art dealer: “I want to paint stunning pictures that you can sell for very high prices.” If he only knew what was
to become of his many masterpieces... A contemporary of Monet and Degas, Renoir was so committed to grabbing and capturing light-filled colors of the open air that he literally stopped using blacks and grays in his paintings. Born in Limoge, France, in 1841,
he may very well be the best loved of all the Impressionists, for his subjects – mostly beautiful women and children and flowers and scenery – are instantly and powerfully appealing. For this, he did not apologize – nor should he have – and once defended himself by saying, “Why shouldn’t art be
ABOUT THIS SERIES
The author of this series, Robert Damien Santagata, is a “rabid Italophile” and the author of the 2020 book “The Paradise of Exiles.” This series presents his vivid, evocative accounts of his search for the soul of Italy – rapturous descriptions that the author attributes to Stendhal syndrome, a psychosomatic condition in which overexposure to any form of great beauty induces a state of euphoria that can include elation, dizziness, confusion, hallucinations and even fainting.