Fear (october)

  On the cover of October I wanted to talk about a subject that I had not touched in the previous covers.

  It's true that the spirit of the magazine (and of the research in general) is full of hope, but, if the brain begins to function in an irregular manner, anxiety and fear are also elements that come into play.

  I painted an actor in front of the mirror. He's wearing a colored bandana in the colors with which some animals in nature "warn" of the danger (or so I was told when I was at school).

  He's holding in his hands a mask of those that in the commercial cinema symbolize the terror and a frame with a landscape reflected in a lake. The landscape alludes to the word "Nirvana" (in the book "Oriental mythology. The masks of God", Joseph Campbell explains that the meaning of this word is "beyond the wind", that our perception of the reality would be like the distorted picture of a landscape on the surface of a lake shaken by the wind).

Only when the wind calms down we can have a more accurate reflection.

  In the background, some images of the sky map of a frescoed ceiling at Caprarola.

Taddeo e Federico Zuccaro, Villa Farnese, Caprarola (Viterbo)

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/issue/current

The engraving for the Vivanco contest and the september Lancet

  I presented two engravings to the engraving contest of the Vivanco wineries; I tell their story:
  I saw in a catalog of an exhibition the photo of a venetian blind that I really liked.

 

A venetian blind of sandstone. Northern India, late sixteenth century/early seventeenth century.

  The repetition of 12 sided polygons which, when neatly combined, form some stars seemed to me a very interesting synthesis; something as if the simple forms the infinite...

  All this connects with what I had been thinking of the "powers of wine" to transport us to a dimension beyond reason, so I decided to use it.

  I thought about using a picture of a sleeping figure with a glass of wine, but my protagonist was not asleep...; then, another one inspired to the Lorenzo de Medici of Michelangelo...;

  but in the end I decided to take as a model a character of "The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew" of Caravaggio,

  this is the character who is behind the young man with his back turned in the foreground

  I made several sketches and I tried to stamp the two copper plates in two or three shades

  For the contest they selected only the black and white version (I presented the light-colored version because I liked the effect of the lines on the dark area) but I heard many voices that the figure hadn't been understood (I will start to work more by using live models).

  You can see the engraving and the other participants in this link to the exhibition catalog.

  http://www.esdir.eu/Upload/Externos/catalogo-IX-Vivanco/

  And why not to use the venetian blind for the september cover?

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/issue/current

Lancet august

  To close the issue of the relationship between science and humanities that I had started with the july cover, I wanted to paint for the cover of august an illustration which had as protagonists neurology and philosophy.

  I sketched some trees in a forest. Those ones which have more height (i.e. the oldest ones) have plasters on the leaves (the same symbol of the previous cover).

  Among the trunks there are two figures. That one who symbolizes the neurology is standing up, looks at diseased leaves, worries, thinks... The other one is a small sitting figure, seems calmer, reflects with a book on the lap,...

   I didn't do it on purpose but the upper part suddenly reminded me of a Van Gogh painting of an outdoor cafe at night. I liked the idea to darken the sky and to put some stars that resembled the cemtral part of the plasters.

                               http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/issue/current

"La infanta" (Lancet, july)

  In the illustration of the cover of july, I wished to address the issue of the importance that I think must have the interrelation between arts and sciences.

  It seems a cliché but some people consider these fields like different world when, in fact, they both deal with the same subject: "the life".

  If nowadays a spanish had to choose a picture "ambassador" of the artistic production of his country, this picture could be "Las meninas" by Velásquez.

  Furthemore it's considered to be a work with some mystery: we discuss if the whole scene is a reflection in a mirror, on the "framed" kings, on the game of spaces it creates, etc.

"Las meninas", Velásquez. Prado Museum. Madrid.

  I've transformed the infanta Margarita into a sick (I've repeated the resource of the "plaster" to talk about a wound, about something that should be cured in her head). 

   She's being attended by two "meninas", two "mininas", two portuguese "ladies - in - waiting" who are taking care of her "physical" needs: one of them is combing her and the other one is bringing her her medicines.



  Her parents are reflected in the mirror, attentive...There are dark paintings on the walls (I've put, but you rather have to guess them, one painting with a kind of mountain that would be Parnassus, where there is Apollo, god of the arts, with the 9 muses; and, another one, with Dionysus and Ariadne - that Velásquez painted also in "The spinners" -).

  But in the doorway a musician appears with his picassiano violin (he has a halo, as Apollo).

  I believe that the art, the arts, not only offer help in the therapeutic process, but also that the intuition, the magic, the "grace",  that somehow they materialize, are essential to "understand and cure" the illness.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/issue/current

Credits: the translator

  To dedicate a post to Rita has been pending for a long time.

She's who has been making this blog in italian and in english since the beginning with the punctuality of a perfect secretary, what she is, in addition to a very good friend.

Thanks, Rita, for the translations and everything else.

Lancet June

  In this cover I wished to speak about the balance that the researchers (and the rest of the people) have to establish between their personal worlds and their dedication to the group and the "collective good"

  The incisions and the writings on the wood give the key of the two complementary worlds.

  I drew a tattoo on each of them where stands out the yin or the yang; one of them wears a white bathing suit and the other one, black; one of them is gazing at his navel and the other one is looking at the horizon ("navel-gazing" in spanish means to pay close attention to themselves)

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/issue/current 

La recherche, Lancet may

 
  I compared the researchers' work (and also the life in general) to the adventure of some climbers.

And this is the illustration:

 (like a wink I put the title in french in homage to Proust)