| ABSTRACT : Elisa Anfuso's painting is cold and flawless and yet it has a great lyrical intensity; she is one of the best painters of her generation, technically skilled to achieve the limits of hyperrealism without crossing its borders, hence remaining in an almost surrealist environment where the precision of the depicted reality dilutes in sweet dreamlike atmospheres between dream and the surfacing of the subconscious. In some of her works the symbolist strength prevails without losing the refined lightness of her lines and the temporal suspension which is the real peculiarity of Anfuso's style; in others, the flat background fillings, so modern, seem to prefigure an almost geometrical abstraction. Her teenagers – portrayed when they are neither awake nor asleep – have become the symbol of melancholic beauty, almost ladies who stand out, in the most typical Renaissance style, against landscapes clouded by mist at dawn. |