"Two hearts in a frame"

Pastel on paper, 67×49 cm, 2025

 

The work “Two hearts in a frame” represents a family portrait in which the couple, placed at the center of the composition, stands out against a luminous Mediterranean backdrop. The scene opens through an arch framing the coastal landscape, with green hills and the sea stretching to the horizon. This natural and architectural frame is not merely a background, but an element that enhances the sense of intimacy, situating the protagonists in a harmonious and timeless context.

 

The choice of the pastel technique lends the painting a distinctive quality: softness, delicacy in color transitions, and at the same time, a striking luminosity. Unlike oil or acrylic, which require drying times or layered applications, pastel makes it possible to achieve immediate and vibrant nuances, creating a velvety surface that captures light and radiates warmth. This feature proves particularly effective in portraiture, as it allows the skin to be rendered with naturalness and the expressions to be conveyed with authenticity, without rigidity. In landscape as well, pastel reveals its full strength: the clouds, the reflections on the water, the greens of the hills, and the flowers in the foreground gain freshness and spontaneity, as if captured in the very moment of vision.

 

The use of pastel in portraits and landscapes has a long tradition in the history of European art. One need only think of Jean-Baptiste Perronneau or Maurice Quentin de La Tour, French masters of the eighteenth century, who brought new immediacy to portraiture precisely through this medium. Closer to landscape, one can recall Edgar Degas, who employed pastel not only in intimate and theatrical scenes, but also in naturalistic studies, achieving unparalleled effects of light and movement.

 

In relation to these masters, this work carries forward the same vocation: to unite psychological intimacy with the breadth of landscape. In the portrait of the couple, one perceives their closeness and complicity, while the background opens toward the infinity of sea and sky. This dialogue between inner life and vast outer space is made possible precisely by pastel, which combines precision in details (such as facial features and clothing textures) with gestural freedom in the broader fields (the clouds, the greenery, the flowers).

 

Thus, “Two hearts in a frame” is not only a family portrait but also a tribute to the evocative power of the Mediterranean landscape and to the ability of pastel to connect personal emotion with natural beauty. The scene conveys serenity, light, and continuity — a memory destined to endure over time, suspended between lived reality and the poetry of color.