Journey to the past, Painting by Vlad Tasoff
Oil on canvas, 2022

Size: 79×59 in, Price:12599$
https://www.saatchiart.com/studio/art/9957885/overview
This is how this work was articulated, with the desire to transmit to the Ecuadorian public on a canvas several elements, known and unknown, from the history of its capital: Quito.
On the 488th anniversary of its foundation, what inspired me to create this work?
Quito “The little face of God” was the first city in Latin America to be declared by UNESCO in 1978 as a Cultural Heritage of Humanity, its Historical Center is an endless source of traditions, legends, inspiration, emotions, and experiences. There exist more than 200 heritage buildings who tell us in their own way, a part of the events of the city and the country.
I chose as the frame of this work, the landscape from a treasure of this Cultural Heritage: The Church of San Francisco, known as “El Escorial del Nuevo Mundo” its construction comes from a legend “Cantuña” who pawned his soul to the devil, in this magnificent temple is the “Virgin of Quito” that of Caspicara, the “Jesus of Great Power” this image that comes out loaded by thousands of purple cones in Holy Week, from this same square also came out once (1600s) the “aguateros” with a mud pond bigger than themselves. In the background the domes of La Compañía de Jesus Church, and a shadow of its tower, considered in the 1700s the tallest in Quito, and which collapsed after an earthquake in 1859.
This frame transports me to the 20s, for its glamor and opulence, the atmosphere of piano, feathers and flowers; another heritage of Quito “balcón quiteño, balcón florido” the song says, it was impossible not to recreate some flowers.
These carved wooden gates, the narrow streets of Quito, the towers, the monasteries, elements that even no longer exist of the old city, but could be photographed, left their shadow in this city, ready for curious artists like me not to let them get lost, in the history of this city.

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