This is a tribute and a visual / creative continuation of André Chastel's work in his book Musca depicta, a study on the representation of insects in renaissance art.
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In a world that has presumably accepted the weak nature of validity, the representation of insects either at the side of men or carrying human attributes, has gained new relevance. This consequence goes beyond the postmodern experiment, too involved in deconstructing the classical, tragic values and denying the traditional subject-object relationship. Apart from raising a debate on the primacy of man as a subject of representations —even in the abstract art— this effect calls into question the whole range of styles, themes, and visions this primacy implies. This idea extends the contemporary theoretical meditation, as a quest for final / circumstantial truths in the nature of relation, motion, and progression. A new type of natural feeling and topos are, thus, enabled.
The attempt of addressing the insects in their visual, compositional, and ontological function, equal or comparable to that of the man, is remarkable in the relatively rare practices of a genre mostly confiscated by photography: the animal portrait. Claiming this genre into the painting has the advantage of an additional lack of restrictions in terms of both theme and composition, unobstructed by the context of a natural environment or by that of a studio.
The attempt of addressing the insects in their visual, compositional, and ontological function, equal or comparable to that of the man, is remarkable in the relatively rare practices of a genre mostly confiscated by photography: the animal portrait. Claiming this genre into the painting has the advantage of an additional lack of restrictions in terms of both theme and composition, unobstructed by the context of a natural environment or by that of a studio.
