“Mr. Demolli defines his work as nostalgic paintings as they conjure up distant landscapes or moments in time.”  ( Gabriel Paul Stuart, National Museum of Murals and Mosaics.)

What is a nostalgic mural?

A nostalgic mural commemorates a place, a time period or an event from someone’s life.  It can be very personal or very public.  It depends on who connects to the mural as a special scene from their personal experience.  Some of my nostalgic murals have included villages or hometown landscapes, historic depictions of a community celebrating the fourth of July, a sailboat race and the fountain where a patron proposed to his wife.  What makes the mural nostalgic is how the art work is viewed or intended, rather than the subject matter.  A nostalgic mural conjures up distant landscapes or a moment in time that has deep meaning for the customer.  Many of the restaurants I have painted include at least one town where the owner lived.  They can point out the house where they lived or where they were born. 

Historic scenes can be educational, but if it is enhanced with people or flags or something intended to remind people of the ‘good old days’ then that mural is nostalgic.  It represents what people want to remember about their past. It can also be a tangible image of places that no longer exist. In the case of my twin towers mural, it is directly related to a terrible historic event but the mural combines a visual expression of what doesn’t exist and the emotion of what does exist in our memory.

Often I wonder what kind of artist I would have been without customers.  I get a lot of ideas from customers and I am inspired by their enthusiasm.  For example, I greatly enjoyed painting King Ludwig’s castle in Bavaria, but I never would have painted it for myself.  In Florence, someone would stop me and ask “When are you going to paint my Venice. ”  So I would go to Venice, to the bridge of Academia and paint the canals and the church, and that would bring me great satisfaction.  What beauty, what inspiration….What joy and all because a customer wanted a painting.  My professor, Silvio Loffredo, used to say, “If you wait too long for the inspiration it may never come.  You start and then it may come.”  I say, you are an artist as long as you create art.   If it was up to me, I may find myself waiting for inspiration.   I enjoy painting for myself, but I also have to thank my customers for helping guide my art and inspiring me with their ideas.

It seems in every period of time, I have found a favorite artist.  If we talk about the Rennaissance, I feel nobody can beat the brush stroke of  Botticelli. But Tomaso Masaccio taught me how to paint.  He is the first artist to bring composition into art.  Before him, Jesus was flying on the wall.  Massacio with his composition introduced perspective and visibility and suddenly Adam and Eve are walking on the ground.  That said, here are a few of my favorite artists.  Many of them are impressionists.
1. Renato Guttuso – Contemporary Artist of Sicily
2. Telemaco Signorini -  Macchiaiolo of Florence (Impressionist) He is largely unknown to the world but he was an inspiring master.  He also wore a very tall hat. 
3. Claude Monet- French Impressionist  He wanted to see the world with a different eye.  At least that is what he said.
4. George Saurat- French Impressionist  Everyone used to say, “Oh, that student of Pissarro.”  He got so upset he wrote a letter to Pissarro saying, “I am not your student, I am George Saurat and I did something that nobody did.”  Che fegato!
5. Of course, you can’t skip Van Gogh.  People say he was crazy, but he was a true artist.  Ok, maybe he was also crazy.  But he was Van Gogh.
6. Winslow Homer- New World.  If he was French, he would have been considered the greatest impressionist of all times.  He beat Monet, Pissarro, and all of them with his subjects, quality and brush strokes.  America didn’t trust him and so today he’s not credited with what he deserves.  I’ll argue that he was the first Impressionist.  Ten years before Monet he painted  ‘The Sharpshooter on Picket Duty’ which has definite impressionist strokes that are not blended.
7. William Turner.   Of course if it was not for William Turner, the artistic genius, I wonder how far landscape painting and impressionism itself would have gone today.  Even though he’s considered a romantic artist, if you look at his paintings he is an obvious impressionist and I’d venture to guess that he inspired Monet.

At the risk of seeming trendy , I’d like to argue the eco-friendly aspects of murals and faux finish.  Faux Finish originally started as a way to imitate expensive and inaccessible materials from around the world.  Classic marble columns, warm leather walls, and exotic wood inlay designs can all be painted.  Faux finish combines with murals to create a rich ambiance that can transform a room.  Create a Roman window that opens into a Tuscan vineyard.  Paint ceiling murals of geometric  patterns  or a Giraffe print ‘wallpaper’.  Faux Finish techniques can even be used to create fantastic materials not available for decorative purposes.  Have you considered having an Avatar landscape created for your bedroom?  Decorative art techniques support modern visions of cohabitating with nature, appreciation for the cultural footprints of a complex global society and they don’t damage resources.  Painting brings the world to you without destruction.  It shows respect for the things that matter to us.  It allows us to honor the earth without ripping chunks of it up to adorn our homes.  Artists contribute to sustainable communities by helping people interact with their world in gentle ways.  Help sustain an artist and hire one today.

If you’re an artist, I’m sure you’ve noticed the decreasing quality of art supplies over the last few years.  Even before the economy dumped, art supplies were getting worse and now it is just pitiful.  Less and less pigment is being loaded into mediums.  Whether you’re using acrylic, oil, or watercolor it is taking me twice the paint to get the same effect.   Companies are adding too much junk and sicatifs.  The color is drained.  The texture is sticky and there is too much gum, oils and glaze.  It is terrible.  You have to apply multiple layers because the paint is transparent.   If you want to buy a decent paint like Hollander, they charge you an arm and a leg, hundreds of dollars for one tube and it is still not good.  Frankly, I don’t know what to do.  Do we need an art tribunal to bring Grumbacher and Winsor & Newton to court for letting down the artists and the quality of art in general?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.  I was lucky enough to inherit some old oils that I am treating like gold right now.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when I run out.

Welcome to Demolli Art Studio’s blog.  Here you will find commentary and articles of interest on and about art and artists.  Check back often and please join in if you have something to contribute.  We’d love to hear from you!