DAVID MAYERNIK
LTD.
The Capriccio
*indicates available for sale
A natural parallel to painting en plein air is inventing the capriccio landscape in the studio. These capricious reinterpretations of familiar and unfamiliar places transform the real into the fantastical. For me they are also opportunities to imagine an allegorical meaning in an architectural landscape.
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I'm especially drawn to Venice and its lagoon as a setting for capricci. The already magical and fantastical aspect of Venice allows me to imagine a whole series of alternative Venices, in the way Canaletto and Guardi did in the 18th century.
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I contributed two chapters to Lucien Steil's collection of essays The Architectural Capriccio: Memory, Fantasy and Invention (Routledge). Wikipedia cites my definition of four themes of the capriccio.
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Watch the video below to see a capriccio idea emerge...
Capriccio Veneziano, invented in Procreate on an iPad
The novelty in painting doesn’t mainly consist in a subject never before seen, but in a good and new arrangement and expression, such that from being ordinary, and old, it becomes unique, and new.
—Nicholas Poussin quoted in G. P. Bellori, Le vite dei pittori