artwork number 39

“Summer Readings” (Tribute to Pier Luigi Nervi) –

Cesare Catania – Contemporary Painting

 

Year: 2016

Dimensions: 170 cm x 120 cm

Technique: Acrylic and oil on canvas

 

 

 

 

Description:

This painting depicts a woman sunbathing on the beach. As seen in previous works by Cesare Catania, the artist symbolically represents the woman in a light and carefree dress, detached from the body and held up by her arms. In this specific case the metaphor of lightness is an artistic prank. What the woman is venturing on is in fact anything but light. Relaxed and graceful (you can tell from the greekness that surrounds her body, the greekness that wants to emphasize the elegance and sophistication of the protagonist), it is in fact studying the Theory of Membranes, the theory that wants to be for the artist a tribute to Pier Luigi Nervi, great Italian engineer of the last century that fascinates Cesare Catania for the precision with which he designed thin vaults and domes of all types and sizes.

In the painting you can clearly see on the top left an umbrella and on the bottom three closed books, in the foreground on the central part you can see her breasts rolled away from her body and the engineering book containing the chapter of what mentioned. Prospectively behind in respect of the foreground but not of secondary importance, the main character and the sun.

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