"Battle of Anghiari", detail. Oil on Canvas 60"x48"
This painting is a colour interpretation of Peter Paul Ruben's
copy of Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished and now lost Battle of Anghiari.
The Battle of Anghiari is an actual event which took place circa 29 June 1440
featuring Milan, the Republic of Florence, and Papal troops.
The colours depicted here are not historically accurate.
I gave up trying to find out who was on whose side and what colours belong to whom.
As I am just learning how to paint without professional instruction,
historical colours and the recipes on how to produce them are beyond my grasp.
So I opted to paint a composition with colours that I would discover as I went along,
This is an effort that took more than three years of painting and learning
in an area so small as half the height of the canvas. Amidst the intricacies of married domesticity
and thinking very, very, very hard about rendering admirable art,
trying not to mess up too badly.
Fearing constantly that Battle of Anghiari might be cursed never to be finished and that I might die of angst,
mixing the colours for the weekend would take me nearly all day.
This is my homage to Leonardo da Vinci and also to Peter Paul Rubens. Thanks for the art lessons, masters.
(C) COPYRIGHT CARLOS V. MENJIVAR
WEB PAGE DESIGN, CONTENT, GRAPHICS ARTWORK, AND EXECUTION BY CARLOS V. MENJIVAR
VICTORIA, BC, CANADA