PARADISUS. Artifice of light

Philippe Casanova French and Baroque painter. Born in Paris, Roman by passion. He paints interiors of churches, Basilicas, Altarpieces, interiors of palaces, villas, castles, urban landscapes, gardens between Rome, Paris, London, New York, Tuscany, Venice.

Philippe Casanova was born in Paris and lives in Rome.
His first artistic commitment was comics, to which he devoted himself until the age of 18. Feeling restricted, he first moved on to illustration and soon to painting.
In 1984, he discovered the Baroque in the abbeys of Central Europe and later in Italy. He was struck above all by Rome. He completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, at the same time he was captivated by the genre of the interior portrait, a pictorial attitude that had reached its peak in the times of neo-classical taste. In the churches and palaces of Rome, he began to adapt this genre to the forms and spaces and rhythms of Baroque.
In 1994/1995, he painted a series of 16 views for the Oratorians depicting the Roman places where the memory of Saint Philip Neri has remained most alive.
In 1995, Princess Elvina Pallavicini commissioned him to paint the Salone della Spinetta (also known as the Salone degli Apostoli), which is now exhibited in the same hall. He subsequently painted in the main private Roman palaces and later in Tuscany, Venice, Naples, Paris, various French castles, London and New York.
In 2005, Alvar Gonzales Palacios and Francesco Petrucci invited him to be the first contemporary artist to exhibit at the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, home of the new Museum of Roman Baroque.
In 2006-2008, invited by the Fabbrica di San Pietro, he painted a journey in 32 paintings set near and inside the Basilica San Pietro, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of its construction.
In 2009, the exhibition "Lampi, Voci, Tuoni" at the Fabio Massimo Megna gallery (Rome).
Since 2012, he has started a cycle of monumental paintings, for example in the Notre Dame du Laus Sanctuary (Alps), or in Santa Maria in Vallicella, for the fifth centenary of Saint Philip Neri (2015).
In 2014, he exhibited "Intus et Foris" at the Romanian Academy in Rome; in these months he also dedicated himself to a series of architectural views and interior portraits inspired by the Baroque of Transylvania and Wallachia entitled: "Est-ce Rome, est-ce Byzance?".