Antonio Decinti

(Santiago de Chile, 1995)

Antonio Decinti was born in Santiago de Chile, later, to be located in Madrid, Spain, in 2002. He belongs to a family of artists. He has received instruction in preparation and framing of holders for oil painting, production of exhibitions, drawing, oil painting with his father, Alejandro Decinti, and the painter, Óscar Villalón.

He has a degree in arts applied to sculpture by Escuela de Arte La Palma, where he acquired knowledge on sculpting procedures in wood, clay, metal and mold production.

He studied History of Art in the UCM (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).

Currently, he does particular courses and teaches in the art academy Decinti & Villalón, where he instructs oil painting and drawing. He also contributes in exhibitions and helps in the production of paintings of his father.

Art as a form of tradition needs to be defended, occidental culture is the maximum exponent of everything that has been created. Under the protection of the Catholic Church, it has been made the best art masterpieces that the history has known. The new tendencies of postmodernism thinking, threatens the tradition that I stand up for in my paintings, as the big subjects of Spanish culture are: bullfighting, flamenco, religious subjects, saints lives. Traditional painting is what I am willing to teach, because this kind of art is what enlightens truth and beauty to the world.

I have been very influenced by “Las Florecillas, by San Francisco de Asís in my religious paintings. Also, by Federico García Lorca in his writings about bullfighting, as “El Romancero Gitano” and “La teoría del duende”, where Lorca talks about inspiration, in this case, flamenca, which can be also applied to every form of artistic creation, inspiration arises from an overly human feeling, which grows and raises the artist to be encountered with the creator. The “duende” cannot be find in everybody, it is a grace given by God to create and help its community, its a mysterious power that everyone can feel but not even the greatest thinkers, can explain. It can be seen as if an angel enlightens the artist so he can do his work almost without exertion, if God wants it to happen, it would do, capacity is not needed, limitations are always in human form. 

When el Greco or Goya did his paintings, it was not important if the technic was not perfect nor if the result was impecable, they just accomplished to transmit with “duende” in their paintings. 

The “duende” is something innate of Spain, death is very present, the biggest festivity is bullfighting, a death battle that can only be finished in the mkst perfect way, which is death, as Manolete (a famous bullfighter) did, it is like mass, where you worship and sacrifice God. 

He works with oil painting, he considers it to be the best technique, because of its characteristics and creation possibilities, and also, because of its conservation. Realist painting  as an universal language it is the world where we live at, and thus this, the ideas that need to be transmitted, are well-received by the spectator. Sometimes, to enhance some paintings, he adds some abstract elements.

Video

Antonio Decinti: en la mente de un joven pintor

Video by Démontrer Studios

Paintings

Alejandro Decinti

(Santiago de Chile, 1973)

Italian-Chilean painter, graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Chili, based in Spain since 2001. Awarded with the Academic Excellence Scholarship in the 1991 admission process to Chilean universities. First prize in the Arte en Vivo contest in 1994 and awarded the postgraduate grant from Fundación Arte y Autores Contemporáneos in 2001. Founder of the Decinti Villalón art project in Madrid, 2003, together with Chilean-Spanish artist Oscar Villalón.

He has been a collaborator and promoter of the Ramírez Máro Institute project since 2009 together with the German artist Rafael Ramírez Máro. In 2011 he founded DeArtibus, an art project in Barcelona, up to 2013. In 2019 he founded the group El Bloque, a DeCinti Villalón project, in Mexico with Mexican artist Heder Contreras. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and America.

Deeply inspired by the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Cornelio Fabro, Christian Ferraro and Étienne Gilson. In 2020 he embraced the challenge of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture to investigate and develop his work along the path of the “Via Pulchritudinis”. He actively combats the anti-Catholic black legend, historical falsification and philosophical errors that wear down Western Christian society through modernist, secularist, materialist and atheist art and culture. Contributing to the cultural counter-revolutionary movement for sound doctrine and in obedience to the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church.

Themes

The artist presents a subtle connection of five great thematic cycles: theology, moralism, Greco-Latin mythology, Mayan and Mapuche mythology. He is always mindful of the major difficulty involved in each of them due to the grandeur and complexity they entail. This diversity is shared by the foundational aspect of humans’ history, culture and soul. Through the common metaphysical experience of the being, as humanity and its transcendental relationship with the reality that invades it overflows, exalting its natural sense of the divine to reach levels of supernaturalness essentially determined by the proximity of the theological truth of revelation. Research and artistic, philosophical, and spiritual development. His work dives into the wide-ranging concerns of his most personal proposal, initially dark and blurred, only illuminated by faint flashes of intuition, which has been clarified and consolidated through a work that reflects his honesty and hard work, making it a very personal contemporary painting proposal with a traditional technical and thematic approach. It attempts to delve into the original mysteries of conscience and freedom hidden in the good Lord’s unfathomable silence.

Via Pulchritudinis : In the theology cycle, he attempts to bring the Christian Eastern and Western iconographic contributions into play, gathered and updated with a personal contemporary sensibility. The artist is aware of the difficulty involved in this challenge, and chooses the main milestones of the revelation, presented in the traditional scheme of the holy rosary, to progressively broaden and perfect the proposals while going into depth into the mystery of spirituality.

Ship of fools: The moralist cycle is based on the satirical work “Ship of fools”, published in Basilea in the 15th century (in its original title in German, Das Narrenschiff; in its Latin translation, Stultifera Navis) written by Sebastian Brand. In a succession of 112 critical episodes, each accompanied by an engraving, it criticizes the vices of his time by denouncing different types of foolishness or stupidity. A reflection on the theme of evil and its foundation in human beings’ radical metaphysical freedom.

Greco-Latin Mythology: In the cycle of Greco-Latin mythology, the painter offers a re-reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a brilliant poetic work in fifteen books published in 8 A.D., which narrate the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar, combining mythology and the history of the time with exceptional beauty and freedom.

American mythology: In the Mayan mythological cycle, the artist seeks to represent the stories in a traditional Western styles that are depicted in the book “Popol Vuh”, also known as “The Council Book”, presumably compilation of texts and oral stories from the 16th century created by Fray Francisco Ximénez. Much of the wisdom and many of the Mayan traditions are treasured in a compendium of aspects of great importance such as religion, astrology, mythology, customs, history and legends that tell the story of the origin of the world and civilization as well as the many phenomena that occur in nature.

Chilian mythology: In the cycle of Mapuche mythology the artist relies on the exciting research work entitled “Trentrenfilú” by the Italian Alberto Trivero. He managed to travel and interview several southern Chilean settlers at the end of the 20th century and through sheer perseverance gathered the main cosmogonic myths that are transmitted from generation to generation. An ethnic group immortalized in the important 16th century Spanish epic poem “La Araucana” by Don Alonso de Ercilla, which will be the source of a new cycle of paintings on the formation of Chilean identity. 

Paintings