Brian Smyth, Italy
A study for Andromeda
Oil on linen
Size: 20 H x 16 W x 1 in
"I worked the painting from quick pencil sketches and photographs, as it was too difficult for the model to hold the pose over the duration of the painting process. I chose to add a more painterly, abstract background to the figure, to contrast with the more classical rendering of the model. I painted the painting oil on linen".
Andromeda is the daughter of the Aethiopian king Cepheus and his wife
Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia's hubris leads her to boast that Andromeda is more
beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends a sea monster, Cetus, to ravage
Aethiopia as divine punishment. Andromeda is stripped and chained naked to a
rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but is saved from death by Perseus.
As a subject, Andromeda has been popular in art
since classical times; it is one of several Greek myths of a Greek hero's
rescue of the intended victim of an archaic hieros gamos, giving rise to the
"princess and dragon" motif. From the Renaissance, interest revived
in the original story, typically as derived from Ovid's account. More on Andromeda
Brian Smyth: "I was born in Cork City, in Ireland. I began my art studies at the Crawford College of Art and design. I studied there for four years and graduated. Starting the year I left college with a sell out exhibition in the Lavit gallery in Cork. In the following years, I continued to develop and fine tune my art practice, while participating in many exhibitions, both solo and group shows. I had solo exhibitions in Dublin, London, and in Edinburgh at the Leith gallery. At the start of 2012 I decided to enrol at the Angel Academy in Florence, in order to learn more comprehensively the skills of drawing and painting, from life. I studied there for three years and upon graduation I was asked to stay on and become a senior art instructor there, specialising in drawing and painting from the live model. I worked there for three and a half years, teaching many students the techniques and principles of life drawing and painting. I decided to leave Angel Academy, to return to the world of painting full time. I continue to live in Florence where I periodically run workshops in portraiture and figure painting. I also give workshops in academic painting in Ireland. More on Brian Smyth
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