Guido Sodani - Oxen

Animal depictions in art have ancient origins, even appearing in primitive cave paintings. For religious reasons, various types of animals appear in the works of various ancient civilizations. It was especially in the Middle Ages, within the International Gothic style, that animal depictions became widespread as true life portraits, both within works of art and in notebooks of drawings and sketches. The presence of animals as subjects in art remained constant until the contemporary era.

This work highlights Guido Sodani's post-Impressionist maturity, which led him to an expressionist interpretation of the subject. The composition is entirely compressed into the foreground, allowing no spatial depth. The painter's aim is not to capture the tangible detail of the grazing oxen, but to capture their very essence, their substance. To this end, the richly textured brushstrokes intervene, which, despite the simplicity of the representation, flesh out the forms and break them down into different planes, capturing the vibrations of light and life with a synthetic and gestural touch. The result is a composition of great expressionistic power that combines the concrete simplicity of the rural world with a decidedly contemporary feel.

Guido Sodani was born in Rome in 1933. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts on Via Ripetta and was a member of the Accademia Latina and the Accademia di San Luca. With over a hundred solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad, appearances at the Venice Biennale, the Triennale, and the Quadriennale, and national and international exhibitions alongside the most prestigious names in contemporary painting, and with works in art galleries and public and private collections, Guido Sodani was among the most renowned contemporary Italian portraitists, so much so that Valerio Mariani places him on the same level as Boldini and Annigoni. Guido Sodani passed away in Rome in 2008.

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