paintedjournals 🎨 Stephan Giannini

Paintings and Occasional Travel Adventures https://stephangiannini.com

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The Statue of Liberty being assembled in Paris in the 1880’s.

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A Seville, Spain gouache painting done when I stayed there for a couple months once. What a lovely city. That and Salamanca are my favorite cities in Spain.

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Gouache in a 7 x 10” Stillman and Birn nova sketchbook . Painted on location by artist Stephan Giannini.

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This building is called La Giralda and is the bell tower of Seville Cathedral in Seville, Spain. The name Giralda means "she who turns" - girar is to turn in Spanish, after the weather vane on top of the tower, a statue of a woman representing faith called El Giraldillo.

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It was originally built as the minaret for the Great Mosque of Seville. Many mosques in southern Spain were converted into Christian churches. But those same Mosques often had previously been Christian churches and before that Roman temples. It’s so fascinating.

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#pleinairpainting#gouache #stillmanandbirn #nightpainting #nocturne

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Group portrait painting session at The Tryon (North Carolina) Artist’s and Sculptures organization. Such nice people!

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Sevilla, Spain a few moons ago. This sculpture is the painter Estaben Murillo, one side of a statue dedicated to the immaculate conception in the Plaza del Triunfo just steps from Sevilla’s Cathedral and the famous Giralda tower.

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Gouache in a 7 x 10“ Stillman and Birn Nova sketchbook.

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I find it fascinating that this statue is not celebrating him as an artist, but for his religious views.

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This statue was dedicated to the Immaculist side of a passionate theological debate — sometimes erupting into street violence — over whether the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, meaning she was pure and sinless from the very moment of her conception.

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As opposed to the other side which thought only Christ was without sin. In the 1700s this debate divided catholic Europe fiercely. The immaculists won the fight and it became official church doctrine in the 1850s.

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#nocturne #gouache #stillmanandbirn #seville #estabenmurillo

Sevilla, Spain a few moons ago. This sculpture is the painter Estaben Murillo, one side of a statue dedicated to the immaculate conception in the Plaza del Triunfo just steps from Sevilla’s Cathedral and the famous Giralda tower.

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Gouache in a 7 x 10“ Stillman and Birn Nova sketchbook.

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I find it fascinating that this statue is not celebrating him as an artist, but for his religious views.

•

This statue was dedicated to the Immaculist side of a passionate theological debate — sometimes erupting into street violence — over whether the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, meaning she was pure and sinless from the very moment of her conception.

•

As opposed to the other side which thought only Christ was without sin. In the 1700s this debate divided catholic Europe fiercely. The immaculists won the fight and it became official church doctrine in the 1850s.

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Thank you. Now all we do is need to rule that AI generated art, text, music, video, etc. is actually plagiarism and a copyright violation.

This is the Supreme courts ruling. It’s widely reported in the news if you search for it online.

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A gouache sketch I did in Ronda, Spain of the Nuevo Bridge. Completed in the 1790s, it bridges a 120 m (390 ft.) deep gorge that divides the town of Ronda in half. It’s quite spectacular, especially when you take a hike down into the gorge and get a worm’s eye view.

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Gouache in a 7 x 10 Stillman and Birn nova sketchbook. Artist: Stephan Giannini.

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Here’s one from the fall of downtown Belfast, Maine that I never showed a completed picture of. With one of my simple homemade frames. 10 x 11“ or 25 x 28 cm., Oil. Sold.

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Watercolor and ink drawing done while sitting in a car on a very cold day. Everything was going quite nicely until I finished up and tried to leave, and realized I had left the lights on and the battery was dead!

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I haven’t been looking at social media much lately. Mostly because it just makes me feel bad. I’ve been busy with a lot of other things and I’m not painting or drawing at all for the last few months. Looking at everybody’s beautiful work is just depressing! The one exception is Substack. An interesting combination of traditional posts and long form writing. Lots of great stuff there on both politics and art.

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This painting is from a couple months ago. Painted in front of the lovely library in my hometown. Apparently I’m such a frequent user there, when I had been out of town for four or five months and I walked in the door they wanted to know where I’d been🤩.

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9 x 12“ or 24 x 30 cm, oil.

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Galileo Chini (Italian 1873-1956), Nostalgic Hour on the River, 1912, Oil on canvas

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Tenants Harbor, Maine waterfront. When I started painting the tide was low and where you see water now was mostly dry land. It’s amazing how much the tides change. Often I use a phone app called “tides near me” to help me understand how much and in which direction they will move.

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8 x 10” or 20 x 25 cm, oil.

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Souvenir from a lovely spot near Port Clyde, Maine. #stephangiannini 8 x 12“ or 20 x 30 cm, oil.

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Working waterfront, Friendship, Maine. I worked on this one in the studio a bit. You can look back to the location sketch posted August 16 and see what the original composition looked like.

8 x 12“ or 20 x 30 cm, oil.

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A portrait study that sat on an easel in my studio for most of the summer. An hour here and an hour there and all of a sudden it was a really lot of hours! I’m always so nervous to post portrait work because three months later I usually see some really silly alignment mistake or anatomy mistake. Still hard after many years.

Oil on a wood panel primed with clear Michael Harding acrylic primer.

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Cavorting with the vampires again.

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9 x 12” or 24 x 30 cm, oil.

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Sketching on a warm September day on the coast of Maine. An outing with the Mid-Coast chapter of the Plein-air Painters of Maine.

8 × 12“ or 20 × 30 cm, oil. #pleinairpainting #maine

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Sketching on a warm September day on the coast of Maine. 8 × 12“ or 20 × 30 cm, oil.