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Still life (after Genga)

acrylic on postcard

11.2 x 10 cm
Mounted: 18 x 13 cm

The original postcard showed an incredible drawing that featured in the ‘Léonard de Vinci et la Renaissance italienne’ exhibition held at Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2019 as by Girolamo Genga (1467 - 1551), ‘Homme a demi-nu, a mi-corps’. Sadly I didn’t manage to catch the exhibition but my friend Agnieszka gave me this postcard. Genga is a fascinating draughtsman that I don’t know enough about but am deeply drawn to. He trained under Signorelli, who I love, and you can see his influence strongly in his drawings. Annoyingly I only have access to half of the catalogue note, if anyone has it I would be interested to know what the curators said about the sheet. I have never handled any of Genga’s drawings but Furio Rinaldi published a fascinating paper in Master Drawings in 2014, from which I learnt a lot. And then working with this postcard, in the silly way that I have, has given me a much better sense of his hand. There is something deeply sad about this figure, the mood has been beautifully expressed by the very delicate and attentive way the artist has rendered the slumped pose and, before I painted over them, the heavy lidded eyes. Turning his body into a pedestal for an apple seemed an obvious thing to do, it seemed appropriately sad.

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