Tragic Alcove (Amisani)

painting by Giuseppe Amisani

Tragic Alcove (also known as La Culla Tragica) was painted in oil by the italian painter Giuseppe Amisani, in 1910. It is kept in the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo of São Paulo in Brazil from 1913.[1]

Tragic Alcove
Italian: La Culla Tragica, French: Alcôve tragique
See adjacent text.
ArtistGiuseppe Amisani
Yearc. 1910
TypeOil on poplar
Dimensions610 cm × 450 cm (242 in × 176 in)
LocationPinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo

Description change

The Alcova Tragica painting represents a female figure with a naked body with sinuous features and a twisted shape. Under the right breast a hand, from which flows a blue-silver veil, he with the bowed head meets the fiery red hair, which covers the eyes of this majestic and fatal creature in the dark fatally. A being, in the presence of this impassive woman, raises his hands in an act of prayer. Under your feet, other men. Former victims, once devoured, and now in agony ready to die. But even if they are torn apart, they come back, as if bewitched, to beg her for a last kiss. And little by little, they partially converge on this amazing backdrop. It is the pleasure of a sex witch, whose desire is never satisfied, consumes men one by one, enchants them and devours them. Now they are no longer needed, as she has already used the blood that bathes her hair. His lips sucked all their strength, they took their own life. She is a femme fatale: a vampire, a man-eater. Everything about the painting is suggestive because it is not yet known what could initiate this massacre, the motive that makes women hurl women against these men. We only know that she appears, touches them and wreaks havoc.

“In Alcova Tragica – this daring, almost reckless creation of the superhuman figure of mermaid woman, who, amidst the prayers, the curses, the moans, the gasps, it is always reborn, like an enchanted phoenix, pomping over this sacrificial bunches human, to rise more and more beautiful and promising and offer on red lips of an immortal lust, the evil fruit of infinite suffering...” (The Correio Paulistano. Art Registration. Amisani Exhibition. Brasil, 12/09/1913)

Exhibitions change

Related pages change

References change

Bibliography change

  • Eros e Thanatos, São Paulo State Government, State Secretariat for Culture, Department of Museums and Archives, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 1988
  • Ruth Sprung Tarasantchi, Pintores paisagistas: São Paulo, 1890 a 1920, 2002

Other websites change