oil on canvas, was 150×130
Signed and dated lower right P. Conti ’80
II theme of Sapphic Eros, which Conti addresses in numerous paintings since 1977, is an homage to Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil . In The Friends it achieves an unusual violence and drama. The feline dynamism of the burly nudes, the clinging grip of the bodies extend to the brushstrokes as well. In its concussive rhythms, the entire composition seems to evoke a desperate cry, which is communicated from man to all of nature, bringing us back, albeit in a different style, to an expressionist system achieved through the additional element of feeling.
