THE NIGHT GOES ON

“The Night Goes On” is an opera that tells an evening spent in Rome with a girl from Paris who I had met by chance in the streets of the center, a few days before. I prepared myself with care, wearing the shirt that was most good for me, and we met for an aperitif that then became a dinner in one of the most fascinating and particular restaurants in the city: the Canova-Tadolini restaurant, located in Via del Babuino, parallel to Via del Corso.

The restaurant, with its unique charm, is furnished with numerous plaster copies of Antonio Canova’s works, creating a suggestive and romantic atmosphere, which seemed suspended over time. But the work does not limit itself to representing that dinner. The title of the work “The Night Goes On” stimulates the idea that that evening did not end at the restaurant table, but that it was only a part of an experience that continued unexpectedly, leaving room for the imagination of the viewer about what happened next.

In the painting, I chose to take the restaurant room again, with the statues that were actually present that evening in the room, but with the addition of a figure: the reconstruction of the statue of the Thinker of Rodin, which reinforces the idea that the evening would continue in an unexpected way. In the foreground, the girl and I are portrayed as we lay in harmony, surrounded by statues, but in a room now empty, with no more present. The solitude of that environment, together with the figure of the Thinker, suggests that something particular is about to happen, something that escapes a rational explanation, but at the same time leaves a feeling of mystery and expectation.

The work reflects not only the memory of an evening, but also the idea of how everything can transcend itself in an experience that goes beyond expectations, leaving an indelible imprint on memory.