Chestnut Forest in Winter

Francesco De Panis (Genoa 1949) is an old-fashioned artist, a painter who practices his craft according to a rigorous tradition. His extraordinary oil landscapes are painted on wooden panels, an ancient and precious medium, ideal for achieving the minute details that make his works a true triumph of realism. Francesco De Panis consciously follows the great pictorial tradition of the Flemish masters, renowned for their use of oil paint, particularly on wood panel. In landscapes, oil established itself as the preferred medium precisely because of its ability to ensure a meticulous and analytical rendering of landscape details, thanks to glazes, transparencies, and the slow drying of the paint. The details present in the Ligurian artist's works make the images almost photographic, while maintaining an authentic pictorial sensibility. Particularly notable is the attention paid to natural elements: the plant parts are depicted with absolute fidelity to reality, with an almost botanical approach, recalling the lessons of the great masters of the past, especially Leonardo da Vinci. For these reasons we believe it is essential to promote the work of Francesco De Panis, a painter who masterfully carries forward the art of old-school painting.