Michela Mansuino

American Beauty

This painting is inspired from the film American Beauty. She makes the link from the film to the ancient Roman myth of The Birth of Venus and the Greek myth of Aphrodite.

Fragile, illusory, yet utterly captivating, beauty holds the promise of happiness in a brush
stroke. It’s the American Dream, to hold still the moment in time when the flowers have just unfurled, their velvet promises inviting, youth at its most vibrant. The roses are not the traditional lust-born crimson, but virginal and virtuously white.

A romantic pink light washes over the tableau. Her body is painted as alabaster, 
her hair flowing goddesslike, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, Aphrodite in a modern canvas. As in the 1999 movie of the same name, she embodies the unattainable. She is the idealization of desire, a search for perfection. Barbie.

Once innocently all young, we were burdened by our potential, yet untainted by life’s blows. The young woman in American Beauty surrenders in repose. She will never be this powerful again and yet she does not know that. She has as yet no idea the superficiality of the world, nor the cruelty of time.
by author Tracey Norre Thomsen

More Work From This Artist


Other Work You May Like

Mod Hatter
Pearl Mintzer
$ 2875.00
Whale Fall
Marie Koo
 
Dysfunctional Ego
Selena Valenti Fine Art
 
Encounter with...
Julie Barbeau
 
What's in...
Pamela Larsson-Toscher
 
Joe With Guitar
Elizabeth Anne Babb
 
Emerging Rose 2
Brian Rothstein
 
Flying Birds do...
Carole Richard Kaufmann
 
Burying Ground
Joseph Ray York
 
Exercitatus
Janice Trusky
 
After Constable #3
Merrilee Drakulich Contemporary Paintings
$ 1200.00
Trapped At The...
Kimberly Shifflett
 
Endless
Paul Sierra
 
George W. Bush at...
Nicholas Wolfson Paintings and Drawings
$ 2300.00
End of Summer
Peter Fowler Studio
$ 1400.00
Chungking Alley
Jodi Bonassi
 
 

Recent Comments

0