An original acrylic painting, on archival, watercolor paper
30 x 20", unframed, ( mat size, 36 x 26" )
$2,200.00, ( plus $30.00, pack and ship )
A previous posting, in this blog, was of a painting I called A Sunrise Visitor.
It was a painting of one of the fountains, in a unique, local shopping area, built in
the early twentieth century, in the style of a southern European village, and which
has a reputation as the nation's first shopping center. In that posting, I mentioned
that I had often used the various, imported, antique sculptures and fountains of that
shopping district as subjects for drawings and paintings. This painting of another,
well-crafted fountain, was from that same area.
The fountain was sculpted by Raffaello Romanelli, and is a combination of
bronze and Verona marble. A joyous, little toddler splashes in the upper bowl,
while being squirted by a cooperative frog. In the classical tradition, the bowl is
being supported by a faun, seated on a porpoise (which looks like a much more
menacing creature than a porpoise) and both are perched on the marble pedestal.
I don't know if Romanelli used his own child as the model for the boy in the
fountain, but it seems likely that he would have used his own family members as
subjects for many drawings, and three-dimensional works as well. The fountain
was purchased in 1929, following the sculptor's death in 1928.
I can still recall seeing the fountain when I was a child in the 1940's, in the
years when it still had its own corner plot of green space, with a background of
flowers and shrubs. But in the ensuing decades, the escalating, property values
in the district have pushed the ever-expanding commercial development closer
and closer to the fountain. As it stands now, there is barely room for it next to
a growing restaurant, and the eternally laughing child has been practically priced
out of a home.
One of the old rules of commerce never changes----money always takes
precedence over art.
( click on image to enlarge)
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