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Dan Seeking Some Direction From Some Familiar Looking Florentines

Artist: Fooks, Daniel · b. 1972

Dan Seeking Some Direction From Some Familiar Looking Florentines

The artist, a Sculpture Graduate from Edinburgh College of Art, was in Italy on a 1994 RSA John Kinross Travel Scholarship. The artist creates a…

The artist, a Sculpture Graduate from Edinburgh College of Art, was in Italy on a 1994 RSA John Kinross Travel Scholarship.

The artist creates a witty response and homage to Florence and the Renaissance.

He shows himself in 20th century tourist clothes, a striped tee-shirt, blue shorts, and open sandals. He stands in a relaxed pose, his back tot he viewer but his head turned in profile.

In keeping with Renaissance painting convention he adopts the same pose as the bearded man with whom he engages in conversation, though in reverse. This figure takes the facial appearance of Michelangelo.

The capped man at left is clearly based on Leonardo's famous self-portrait, whilst the young man at extreme right is Sandro Botticelli, taken from a detail of his Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi.

The overall composition is based on the central group around Christ (here replaced by Michelangelo) from Masaccio's fresco The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.

© The Artist