NOVELLA ARIANNA AND LEONARDO’S ARIANNA OF BELVEDERE - DIAGONAL LOVE, HARMONY OF OPPOSITES

Room V

The main feature is Novella Arianna, a sculpture of female figure that gives life to game of reflections (thanks to glossy steel, the material of many work by Oreste Ruggiero) and – in the same time – of thoughts. As a modern Sphinx (the human body and the front paws by lioness), the art work is a contemporary interpretation of Arianna’s Greek myth present both in Art’s History and in Poetry.

Arianna, the Cretan princess and Minos’ daughter who, after she helping Teseo in the Minotaur’s Maze, was abandoned by the ingrate on Naxos’ island; here she was awakened by the arrival of Dionision who took her as his wife.

The Arianna’s Myth has often been an inspiration for the artists of all time (famous the painting by Tiziano, Guido Reni, Pelagio Pelagi) and also Oreste Ruggiero takes stimulus – like the Renaissance artists and of later times – portraying her not sleeping, but awake and almost proud: the arms are bending to support the torso and get longer, while the head straightens looking up. 

The work Novella Arianna has been placed on board of Lady Lana superyacht – made by Benetti in 2020 – and has been chosen as main image in a service of Forbes magazine.

A tribute of Ruggiero to Arianna’s Drawing in the Cortile delle Stature del Belvedere by Leonardo da Vinci (Codex Atlanticus, f770v, Ambrosiana Library).

In addition to sculpture, the exhibition show the Novella Arianna in four black and white photographs by Aurelio Amendola, the photographer internationally known whose his retrospective exhibition in Pistoia is promoted by Fondazione Pistoia Musei.

The sculptural subject is shaped in such a way as to seem peace and tension, dynamism and relaxation creating a kind of  “Harmony of  Opposites”.

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Opposites’ Harmony also aims two little works, signed by Oreste Ruggiero, entitled Diagonal Love. Two profile of the Arianna’s face that reminiscent of Greek Theatre masks’, in glossy steel, one on black background and another on white background.

The Novella Arianna work, exhibited in the second original version at the Leo-Lev Center in Vinci, photographed by Aurelio Amendola, is placed on a megayacht built by Cantieri Navali Benetti, an excellence of the Italian nautical industry in the world, with design elements performed by Normanno art luxury.  (See Link: https://youtu.be/odejVvff2Zs)