Silvio Porzionato pays homage to the masterpieces of the great masters of classical art that have guided his career as an artist.
Michelangelo’s Moses is one of the most famous sculptures in the world, a true masterpiece by Buonarroti, preserved in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.
Moses – 235 cm – marble – Michelangelo Buonarroti – Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome – 1513/1515
Porzionato nurtures an important artistic attachment to this great master and this work is the first in a series entirely dedicated to him, as a source of the greatest inspiration. This sculpture, in particular, fully represents Buonarroti’s personality: famous is the look of the Moses defined as ‘terrible’, interpreted as an expression of Michelangelo’s character, irascible, proud and severe. In fact, although in the original sculpture Moses’ gaze is not turned towards the viewer, but appears slightly turned towards his left side, Porzionato frames the figure in front, to capture all the intensity of the solemn gaze, as if it were that of the great master.
Mosè – 200×140 cm – oil on canvas – Silvio Porzionato – 2024
Also linked to this sculpture is the legendary anecdote according to which Michelangelo, contemplating it at the end of the final finishing touches and amazed himself by the realism of its forms, exclaimed ‘Why don’t you speak?’, striking its knee with the hammer he was holding. An episode that, in transposition, becomes emblematic of the relationship between Porzionato and his innate predisposition to hyperrealism.
In his newest series, titled “BLUESERIES,” for the first time Silvio Porzionato pays homage to the classic icons and subjects that have shaped and inspired his journey as an artist.
Inspiration was born between the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Vatican Museums: initially attracted by busts and statues of minor figures, the artist continued the pictorial cycle by focusing his path with a work of figurative and conceptual interpretation of the most important pictorial works of all time.
“BLUESERIES” represents an ode to the beauty and complexity of art, both ancient and contemporary, to the power of imagination and art’s ability to inspire and transform. The artist skillfully weaves personal elements of contemporary figuration into abstractionism and, conceptually, even cubism. First and foremost, he enacts a profound reflection on the continuity of art through the centuries and the relentless search for new forms of expression.
The common thread of this series is blue, specifically cyan, charged and intense. Blue has always taken on multiple meanings: it is depth, it is infinite, it is an inner, soul-telling color. For Vassili Kandinsky, blue represented man’s impulse to search for his inner nature.
