The finely wrought surfaces of Tullia Caporicci’s watercolors give her buildings at once tangible weight and an illusory gauziness, as if the structures themselves are uncertain of their own permanence. This delicacy, which is characteristic of the Italian artist’s work, is memory made visible: by immortalizing architecture, Caporicci embraces the romanticism and longevity of past cultures. “My paintings are a story of a time gone by,” she says. “It is not only the transfer of an image on paper, but the reflection of the life that shaped it.” The underlying Neo-Classical influence is tempered by the soft color sense of realists like Courbet or Degas.
Caporicci mines the fragility of her medium to its fullest potential. Architectural detail is the focus; a doorway corner or a single column flute is tightly framed, while transparency and airiness in the line and color are constantly maintained. Layering shades of gray and brown, she allows stretches of almost bare paper to convey the silence and solitude of these grand structures.