I was a sickly, melancholy boy, born to old parents in 1445. The doctors didn't think I would make it, but it must have been the Florentine flair that made me embrace life.
I loved to play practical jokes on my friends. Although, curiously enough, I developed a strong affection toward my students who adored art. Not to mention my adoration toward my Savior...
But...let me back up a moment...
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I was the last son of a tanner, grown to be known as a handsome, yet pale and sickly man, and by good fortune coming from a prominent family, I was chosen to become an apprentice to a goldsmith, then at age 15 began training under the well-known painter, Fillipo Lippi. Those years inspired me to paint the Adoration paintings, like the Adoration of the Magi.
Something burned inside of me while I painted this piece...of which I cannot describe...but I can recall its strength and passion. Perhaps it was a forboding moment...
I've been commissioned to assist in painting the Sistine Chapel! The Pope has requested my work to adorn the walls! So I paint and paint and paint.
After my reputation increased with the chapel's painting, I'd been requested to paint allegoric themes for prominent Italian families. I enjoy it! Yet....someone caught my eye....
My friend, Marco Vespucci, married the most beautiful woman in the world. Most paintable. Most ethereal. Doth he know of her beauty? Her profile. Her hair. Her stature. Simonetta Vispucci. My inspiration for my future paintings, whether I'm aware of it or not...
Many of Florence's prominent families have commissioned me to paint allegoric themes for them. I have. Gladly. Primavera...Pallas...my dear Venus...
It's 1495 now, and I'm fearful of the future of my people. The political and relgious crises have taken toll on my soul. Dear Lord, relieve me of this angst! These monumental works of allegorical themes have transformed into religious adorations! I'm growing older.
My popularity is waning, and my sickness has caught up with me. I can no longer paint as I used to. I'm feverishly drawing these Dante's Divine Comedy works for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, patron of Medici's family. The Medici family has been expelled, you know. Yet I will always have my Simonetta. Ayyyy, my Simonetta, that beautiful thing, who passed away by illness in 1470....my heart is rejuvinated every time I paint your face...
I'm dying. Ohhhh, Simonetta. How I wish I had not rejected marriage.
Chagall's pure and unconditional love for his first wife, Bella Rosenfeld (who died suddenly in 1944) haunts his earlier and part of his later art. I love his extraordinary use of colour and the loss of gravity that prevails in his work. ♥ Nana
The true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood.
*Alice Meynellin“The True Colour of Life” Essays (1914)
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