The Winged 2007

Editor: So, here we have Stefan Caltia’s 2007 oil painting, "The Winged." It feels quite unsettling. The figure seems to be floating, and the bare trees add to the eeriness. How do you interpret this work, looking at it from your perspective? Curator: The handling of the oil paint itself is really interesting here. Caltia builds up the surface in layers, almost like sedimentary rock, you see it? The grey backdrop feels like a cheap, mass-produced canvas, creating a kind of dissonance with the figure's meticulously painted costume and even her exposed limbs and face. Editor: Dissonance in what way? Curator: Well, think about the materials. The mass-produced canvas versus the artisanal skill required for figuration – it sets up a tension. The "Winged" alludes to Romanticism but is produced through a more modern, arguably alienated, mode of production. It almost mocks the genre. Notice also the repetitive motif of wings; these are not angelic wings as such but fragments, commodities almost. Are they real, or imagined by the model? Editor: That's an interesting way of looking at it! So, the means of production change how we perceive the content of the painting itself. Curator: Precisely. The social context of the painting production also influences meaning. This tension is a material statement about the challenges facing Romantic ideals today. What are we actually consuming when we purchase Romantic ideals, and how can Romanticism find renewed expressions under these cultural conditions? Editor: So, by examining the materials and methods, we can start to consider this Romanticism as an expression under cultural conditions rather than solely as an expression of an emotional state. Thanks, I never would have looked at it that way.