Saturday, October 18, 2014

Caniglia-Fruit Studies


Here are a few more of my latest fruit studies. These still life paintings are a great way to understand light, shadow, color and composition. The still life painting genre is as diverse as its history is long. From the times of the early Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans paintings of fruit can be found on tomb walls, tile floor mosaics and wall paintings in Pompeii all the way to Rome and the High Renaissance.

Even in our modern day and age, works of art with contemporary themes of fruit and still life painting is still going strong. The genre has always been one that artists turn to again and again when they are not working on bigger commissions.

These studies are so important for artists to pursue to understand color and light. Through them, still life art compositions articulate ideas about our natural world, religious symbolism, personal as well as allegorical explorations, and universal human reflections on life and death. I have been enjoying bringing these little fruit studies to life during the fall season. Artists can look to this unique genre for the answers that painters are forever trying to find.

If you are interested in purchasing any of the paintings please e-mail me here on my blog and I will let you know the price with shipping included.

Thanks
Caniglia   


Saturday, October 11, 2014

APPLE PAINTINGS-CANIGLIA ART


This week I have a few of my apple paintings to show. I am working on 2 more that are not completely dry yet. I will show those paintings soon. As I have mentioned before Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) has always been an inspiration to me with his magnificent ability to depict perfect planes of color and composition. I also love his quirky statements like “I want to astonish Paris with an Apple”. As I have researched his still life fruit paintings, I have found that he had completed over 250 pieces devoted to fruit. That is true artistic dedication.

I will have more fruit paintings to show over the coming weeks. I am currently working on a lemon and Clementine as well. I am currently teaching my students a section on painting fruit. They are doing a great job of understanding line, shape, color, and form. I am teaching them how to give form and mass to objects through the juxtaposition of brushstrokes and carefully balanced colors and textures. I also explain how Cezanne was able to let edges disappear into the negative space and other objects. When an artist does this in their work, the painting then gains a sense of comforting stability. The results are wonderful with strong compositions in their bright coloring, dynamic surfaces, and distorted spaces.

More paintings and updates coming this week.

Thanks
Caniglia


Friday, October 3, 2014

Caniglia_Art "Pear a dise"


As fall marches on, I decided that I would take a trip to the orchards this last weekend to both witness and sketch the wonderful different fruits with their ever-changing hues, colors, and tones. The apples are now at the height of the season and the pears were fading fast with muted earth tones and splashes of deep reds and yellows.

I have posted two of my pear paintings this week and I will post two more apple paintings next week. As I sketched out my paintings I noticed that I was drawn to show just one piece of fruit in each painting. I felt as I painted the pears, there was deeper meaning in each of the compositions that I chose to portray. Upon closer observation of the decomposing fruit I noticed that the pears are emblematic of the isolation and repression that the winter brings as it blows into the orchard. The warmth of the summer sun has faded and the season churns on the pears. Some were isolated in the top height of the trees forgotten or unreachable. Piles of apples lay in various stages of decay.

The youth of the fruit was in hues of yellow while the middle-aged fruit was in stages of greens and bright reds and the older fruit was deep red with hues of brown spots and blemishes. The entire process left me a bit melancholy to see the changes in the fruit and how it resembles the cycle of life as everything returns to the potter’s ground.

I will have more updates coming soon with more paintings and information about a special book that I just finished the cover for.

Thanks for your support.

-Caniglia