THE PHOENIX – 2012

The sacredness that accompanies the phoenix goes back up to Ancient Greece, it’s a bird with intense plumage and a lot of symbology, that has enriched the artistic representations of numerous civilizations.

Distinctive characteristic of the phoenix is the possibility to revive from its same ashes, according to the motto post fata resurgo (I come back from the death), and it is so that the mythical bird elegantly evokes the creative and destroyer fire, even in the Christian rites of  death and rebirth.

The Master invites the spectator to read the work from the lower part, part in which we find a turned on match, of which the fire creates the form of an egg and the smoke creates the border of an imaginary nest, emblem of the birth. The Painter signs the canvas inserting the match in a hull of walnut, an image that represents his artistic production, and he abandons the composition in the waters of a hypothetical mythical river. The water, according to the Egyptian tradition, is the real origin of the phoenix, that, as the heron, manifested its beauty close to the banks of the river, miming the sun rising.

Continuing in the analysis of the work, it gets more and more evident that the animal has not detached the flight yet and, rather it hardly frees the ample wings still rolled up on the body. The scene pays homage to the original colors of the bird according to the mythology, they goes from the gold of the neck to the purple of the wings. From the head a pink feather and one light-blue slip, while the blue tail has not had the opportunity to appear yet, being still spilled downward, only the three colored feathers are twisted till they are held by the beak, that is intent in the cleaning. The gold strains from every point of the plumage, in a continuous cycle that can be seen as a birth and destruction and again rebirth of the mythical animal.

The phoenix is preparing therefore to detach the flight, and stretching the wings, it keeps its image of emblem of the fire and, therefore, of the sun.