Donato Giancola profile picture

Donato Giancola

donatoart

About Me

www.donatoart.com

My Interests

My love of fine oil painting reaches back to my education as a painter at Syracuse University. For me, the most important issue about painting is not the commercial printed image which reaches millions, but what a person takes away when experiencing the original work. I moved to New York to be near its wonderful museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frick Museum, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Pierpont Morgan Library, and Museum of Modern Art. I still spend many afternoons visiting my favorite artists -- Hans Memling, Jan Van Eyck, Velazquez, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Mondrian, Rembrandt, Rubens and Titian. I strive to comprehend their complexity and bring that into my work. There is nothing so impressive to me as standing in front of a huge Velazquez that is 16' wide and 10' tall with fully life-sized figures! ( a pilgrimage to the Prado Museum in Spain was made to see that one.) Or I will spend long stretches of time gazing into the minute details of a tiny Van Eyck, 8" by 12", bumping my nose on the glass straining to see details almost invisible to the eye (Philadelphia Museum of Art has that one). It is the combination of classical aesthetics with my love of Modern abstraction that I attempt to meld into one art form in my paintings. You can see these influences in some of my illustrations. For example the portrait Cartographer is inspired after Lorenzo Lottos portraits; the dense compression of figures in Faramir at Osgiliath are the melding of Caravaggio-like renderings with the surface patterning of a Pollack; and the vertical columns in Ashling recall Barnet Neuman while building upon the atmospheric illusions of Van Eyckian perspectives.

My Blog

News from the Studio

A new painting, "Fortune and Fate", has been added to my gallery.Oil on panel, 20" x 24". Also below is the preliminary drawing. This piece was created for Sharon Shinn's upcoming novel, "Fortune and ...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Fri, 02 May 2008 08:52:00 PST

News from the Studio

A few new paintings have been added to the site: Shaman, Luna: Goddess of the Moon and The Reluctant Knight. The first piece, Shaman, was a commission for the Science Fiction Book Club. Shaman was so...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:50:00 PST

Illustration Master Class

Illustration Master Class to feature Donato and many notable industry professionals June 16-22 2008Amherst, MAA week long intensive master class in June will feature a full schedule of classes in f...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:48:00 PST

New Paintings an awards

A new portrait of my fellow New Yorker and highly talented artist, Michael William Kaluta, is now posted to the website gallery. A couple of years ago, I was a approached by an art collector, Michael...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:46:00 PST

News from the Studio

First Issue Ceremony for Donato's United Nations StampsOctober 25, 200711am-12pmMadison Square GardenNew York, NYDonato will be a guest speaker at the first issue presentation of the new United Nation...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:17:00 PST

News and New Drawings

I've been doing some updating on the website and the drawings section is now much easier to navigate, and has a bunch of new pieces in it. Please check it out at:http://www.donatoart.com/prints/draw...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:25:00 PST

News from the Studio

There's been so much going on for the last month. San Diego Comic Con and a Solo Show at the Southern Vermont Art Center just to name a few. So now that things are settling down, there are some updat...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:55:00 PST

News from the studio

There are some new paintings up in the gallery and in recent news:"Amazing Visions" Group show at Roq La Rue GalleryApril 13, 2007Seattle, WashingtonDonato will be joining such artists as James Gurney...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:15:00 PST

Monthly Update

I've just added a new painting to the gallery. Tristan and Isolde was a private commission with a requested homage to Waterhouse. You can view it here:http://www.donatoart.com/gallery.html...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:10:00 PST

News from the Studio

2006 Chesley and Hugo Awards Received at WorldConAugust 24, 2006Anaheim, CaliforniaDonato has just been awarded the 2006 Chesley Award for Best Magazine Cover, from the Association of Science Ficiton ...
Posted by Donato Giancola on Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:18:00 PST