Franco Sarnari - Portrait of a Woman

Portraiture is one of the most widespread artistic expressions, especially in painting, but also in sculpture, throughout the ages. Portraiture is, first and foremost, a description of the subject depicted, an attempt to capture their physiognomy and individual characteristics truthfully and naturally. With the progressive evolution of artistic research, the physiognomic description of the subject has also been accompanied by a psychological one. Therefore, over the centuries, portraiture has also become a means of introspective investigation of the subject, their character, and their state of mind. The processes of abstraction brought about by contemporary art have contributed to this type of investigation.

The style of painter Franco Sarnari, in many works such as this "Portrait of a Woman," is characterized by the development of a strongly expressionist language. The artist seeks to go beyond what is perceived by the senses to extrapolate the true essence of reality and communicate it on canvas in a lively and dramatic manner. For this reason, through the application of color, he develops a highly synthesised process that reduces the subjects to dense, material layers of paint, in which the painter's emotion is also the protagonist, conveyed through his brutal gestures. All these elements together constitute the expressionistic power of Franco Sarnari's painting. This power is also based on a specific aesthetic choice that reaffirms the dramatic tone of his works, namely, that of favoring a marked monochrome of brown tones, from which the images emerge almost with difficulty, establishing a struggle with the pictorial material.

Franco Sarnari was born in Rome in 1933. His artistic development stemmed primarily from his association with Piero Guccione. His refined expressive exploration was expressed in the Frammenti, Cancellazioni, and Controluce series. He has exhibited his work in important exhibitions, including a solo show at the La Tavolozza gallery in Palermo in 1981 and his participation in the Venice Biennale in 1988. In 1989, he became Professor of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania. In 2003, the Senate purchased one of his works for the Palazzo Madama collection.

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