The Harlequins

01

“The Harlequins” A Version

“… it seems like an invented character but I believe that each of us resembles Harlequin a bit, a complex character, sometimes comic, other times dramatic… a set of contrasting characters that coexist more or less harmoniously within the same body: the human being.”

(Cesare Catania)

02

The first inspiration

This painting draws its inspiration during a Sunday in December of the year 2015. After spending part of the day walking in the center of the city of Nice, the author returns home in the evening and fantasizes about the evolutions of some street kids seen during in the afternoon. Two harlequins fill the scene and play with each other in a serene and colorful environment.

03

Carefree and Youth

The one on the left, proud and authoritarian, hugs his head with his right arm, as if it were a soccer ball. The one on the right instead lets himself be grabbed by the leg and flipped upside down, light as a feather; with his left arm he tries to take back his head which remained planted on the ground under his friend’s foot. The harlequins in this first version symbolize youth and carefreeness for the author, as do the light heads and disconnected from the rest of the body.

cultural background

04

The Importance of Harlequin

This first painting, made with wax crayon and acrylic on paper, kicks off a real collection on Harlequins that will be created by Cesare Catania over the years to come.

The importance of the character of Harlequin is fundamental to fully understand the poetics of the Italian artist. In fact, for him we are all a bit like Harlequin, dynamic, imaginative, comical, dramatic.