Annotation to the painting “A Moment of Happiness”
Pastel, 60×42 cm, 2025
In Raphael Beltramo’s work A Moment of Happiness, the viewer encounters a rare example of a thoughtful engagement with the pastel technique — a medium that possesses both intimacy and monumentality. The artist presents a portrait of a couple set against an architectural arcade and a blooming garden, creating an image where the harmony of human relationships, the solidity of cultural tradition, and the transience of nature’s cycle come together.
Pastel, chosen as the principal artistic medium, emphasizes the fragility and refinement of the moment. This technique, demanding exceptional precision and mastery, allows for subtle tonal nuances, transparency in light and shade transitions, and vibrancy of color. Particularly striking is pastel’s ability to unite painterly and graphic qualities: the lines retain their delicacy, while the color masses achieve richness, preserving at the same time the breath of the paper.
In a historical context, Beltramo’s work continues the tradition of 18th-century portraitists, above all Jean-Étienne Liotard, whose pastel portraits became symbols of supreme refinement and elegant veracity. Like Liotard, the artist seeks not only the accuracy of external likeness but also the revelation of psychological depth. The faces of the figures radiate softness and inner dignity, while the composition, framed by arches and columns, lends classical stability to the image, binding it to eternity.
The plastic organization of the painting is built upon the contrast between architectural solidity and the living mutability of nature: the decorative stone column is opposed to the delicate petals of blooming wisteria, while the bright azure sky reinforces the sense of freshness and renewal. At the center of the composition remains the human presence — figures embodying not solemnity but intimacy, not formality but the personal experience of closeness.
The execution technique deserves special attention: soft pastel strokes applied in multiple layers create an effect of luminous vibration and a characteristic “dusty” surface texture so typical of this medium. Such work requires a faultless movement of the hand, for pastel allows no corrections: each touch remains part of the final composition, turning the process into a kind of “capturing of time’s breath.”
Raphael Beltramo demonstrates that the pastel portrait, rooted in a rich European tradition, can be entirely relevant today, at a time when there is a renewed need for images that are both psychologically precise and emotionally warm. The painting A Moment of Happiness is an example of how the family portrait transcends the boundaries of private commission to acquire the significance of an artistic statement about harmony, love, and the beauty of everyday life.
The artist continues to work in the genre of pastel portraiture and accepts commissions, offering the viewer an art in which intimacy and tradition merge into a single poetic image.