Title: Teeny Weeny Puccini (#2)
Material: Oil on canvas
Size: 48×48
Year: 2017 Sold
God touched me with His little finger and said ‘Write for the theatre, only for the theatre.’ — Giacomo Puccini
The accompanying quotation sparked this portrait of the artist between God and man (in this painting, as if rendered by Michelangelo). Puccini was a quiet and reserved man who wrote loud music for 100-piece orchestras and shrieking women.
I use classic Italian shapes and Eastern circle, for a splash of Orientalism. The Italian flag colors create the smooth stone tile beneath every Italian’s Farragamo’s. The red and green become less saturated and more satinated at the corners, for a sense of costumery and Milanese fashion.
With such relaxing color and that Vitruvian structure, Giacomo’s not going anywhere, so he sits at a café, leaning against the center-line while trying to keep score between cups. The chair that’s depicted is one of the two hair-pin chairs I’ve used as an easel in my studio for the past 30 years.