The Birth of Venus
Oil on canvas representing Venus, standing in a shell, from the waves of the sea and surrounding by characters, in a balanced composition. The painting is covered by a serigraph, whom art nouveau motif, inspired by a René Beauclair’s design, acts as a veil, participates to reveal Venus even more and amplify the viewer position of the spectator. The motif is applied according to a technique elaborated by the artist. Moreover, three lines of empty carafes, inspired by models of the beginning of the 19th century, accentuate the transparency and are an additional filter for the prying eyes. Finally, there is a superposition of several times and spaces: the copy, the artist’s work, the one of the spectator.
Signed ‘Olivier Masmonteil’ and dated on the back, 2018
Dimensions:
Sight: Height: 78 ¾ in. Width: 70 ¾ in.
Framed: Height: 81 ¼ in. Width: 72 ¾ in.
Commentaire :
This painting is inspired by the oil on canvas Birth of Venus painted by William Bouguereau, in 1879. In a composition in triangle, the artist represents a Venus Anadyomene, a goddess of love and beauty, the eternal feminine, coming out of the sea. In a delicate hip, the contrapposto of the Greek statues, Venus draws the attention and stands out from the characters around her. By the reference to mythology, by the idealization of the bodies and by the attention to the details and to the technique in drawing, this artwork is an example of the Academic painting which echoes to the themes and masters of the Renaissance, as Botticelli. This painting with a perfect smooth surface, with harmonious lines and delicate contours, represents an art, called “peinture pompier”, which is progressively forgotten at the end of the 19th century, an art in opposition to the modernity of the Impressionists, more and more appreciated. Thus, Olivier Masmonteil participates in the rediscovery of this academic masterwork, appreciated today for its handling, by appropriating it to create his own Birth of Venus, which belongs to the series ‘Memory of the Painting’. With this series, Olivier Masmonteil decided, according to his own terms, to “dilute the painting in the painting”, to “take the tools of the painting : history of art, oil on canvas, serigraph, pattern, trace, mark, drawing, representation, figuration, abstraction, [and to] put all together with the ambition of highlighting [his own] memory of the painting. Lastly, by quoting Bouguereau, Olivier Masmonteil, who belongs to a generation thinking to the painting as an old-fashioned art, questions the official and peripherical arts. Eventually, each period has a major and a minor art, whom these of yesterday aren’t those of today but could be these of tomorrow.
