LA NOIA / BOREDOM is a digital painting by Saul Zanolari 2015-2017
2 years to create 13 hyper detailed portraits measuring 20x10 meters in total, talking about Boredom as a basic human condition including Marie Antoinette, Venus de Milo, Nike, Pinocchio among others.
In the Roman Empire’s age boredom had the meaning of hate and suffer because of a lack of adequate stimuli.
The concept of boredom evolved over the centuries since became a noble feeling where the human soul falls back on himself and becomes artistic and creative expression in the Renaissance.
Boredom in the contemporary era is a normal but privileged lifestyle.
Most of the western people is no more suffering because of the basic needs like hunger or thirst and has the privilege to be bored thinking on different things like beauty, art, philosophy, tv, etc.
The contemporary way of thinking is in some way still the Illuminism way of thinking: full confidence in the scientific method developed after the French Monarchy’s end.
This is why the painting starts with a Full Moon on a tree full of eggs not yet hatched and develops with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI beheaded.
Between them there is Pinocchio, the archetype of lies, whose roots are deep and branch all over the first globe.
In this sense SZ Boredom develops from left to the right reminding at Leibniz’ Monadologie.
Below Pinocchio and the Royal Family are the female archetypes of perfection: The Windged Victory of Samothrace, the Woman of Willendorf (fertility) and the Venus de Milo (beauty and harmony).
As the German philosopher used to say, we live in the best of all possible worlds.
The three statues are in three different globes, similar to atoms that do not communicate one another: Monads.
Than is the turn of the basic needs: sleep, thirst and hunger.
Needs already satisfied represented by skeletons of animals.
At the extreme right of the painting there’s a Sun and a Saint laughing (enlightened by the sun).
SZ Boredom is a typical multi-layered Zanolari’s painting describing deeply yet ironically the contemporary era.
A description of a normal but privileged lifestyle which starts from an annoying feeling (boredom) and it’s not synonymous of happiness.
More info: saulzanolari.com
LA NOIA / SZ BOREDOM
MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE
LOUIS XVI KING OF FRANCE
WINDGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE
VENUS DE MILO
VENUS OF WILLENDORF
WOODEN SUN
PINOCCHIO
HUNGER CAT
SLEEPY BEAR
THIRSTY FISH
OCTOPUS
LAUGHING SAINT
