THE GOLDEN PLATE, STILL LIFE WITH POMEGRANATE
©2014 Felice Panagrosso
Oil on Canvas
21 x 25 cm

A great teacher of mine once said that a painting should have three qualities.  First, it should draw you in from across the room.  Second, it should have something about it that holds your attention when you are close to it and makes you keep looking.  Third, it should leave you with something that makes you think about it after you have left the gallery, so that you want to go back.

With that in mind, here are the three reasons why you should not buy one of my paintings…

1. Because you expect that it will increase in value, then you can sell it and make some money.

2. That you believe I’ll become a famous artist, then you can sell the painting and make some money.

3. Because I will die, then become a famous dead artist.  The painting will increase in value, then you can sell it and make some money.

Let me be clear that I DO want my paintings to increase in value!

But that’s not the reason I want you to buy them in the first place. It’s not why Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

In other words, be a Patron of the Arts first.  Buy a painting, mine or any one else’s, because you love it, because it gives you pleasure, and because you want to be with it every day.  Because it leaves you with something that makes you want to come back to it again and again.

Look at it this way.  What else can you buy today, that if cared for in a reasonable way, can last 500 years or more, finding its way from generation to generation, providing pleasure, inspiration and a story to all who know how to appreciate it?

-Felice