Saturday, November 21, 2009

Citadelle 2 - Jean Francois Rauzier (French 1952)

This blew me away. Go to the site and enlarge and zoom into the image.



"In this huge advent calendar a glorious selection of Venetian, Florentine, Neapolitan and Milanese gardens are partially hidden behind the doors, and a myriad of Italian Renaissance paintings can be seen through each window.

Citadelle 2 depicts the first floor of the same ‘Hotel Particulier’ in Rue de l'Universite in Paris as portrayed in Citadelle 1 (and shows to what extent Lagerfeld had painted over the gilt decoration
on the ground floor). In this exceptional work which amalgamates over 1,500 different images, Rauzier intends to portray the essential shallowness of French late 18th century decoration - like
icing on a cake - by juxtaposing it with the significant subject matter and the quality of the Italian 13th and 14th century paintings which he has placed behind the windows and doors. These subjects include the Birth of Venus, mankind being expelled from the Garden of Eden, Jesus being betrayed and crucified, and of course the Day of Judgement.

A key to the Italian artists whose work is represented will be included with this work. The artists include Giotto, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Uccello and Leonardo da Vinci."

Rauzier’s work is breathtaking. See more of it here.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1:47 am

    Thank you for useful info. :-)

    ReplyDelete