Femme au Cafe du Louvre AC0057D05 by Alessandro Cardamone
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Medium: Stampa su tela
Dimensions: 130 x 100 cm
Edition production year: 1993
Price: $5500.00 USD
Status: available
Limited edition, digital reproduction by the Hong Art Museum on Giggle Canvas Signed and numbered by the artist. Comes with a certificate of authenticity. Limited edition of 1/20, Gigleec technique, on 100% cotton, 380 g, matte cotton canvas, with description, signed and numbered by the artist on the back as shown in the photo. Comes with a certificate of authenticity for the work AC0057 Switzerland 2000 Title: Femme au Café du Louvre Code: AC0057 Year: 2000, Switzerland Artist: Alessandro Cardamone Technique: Acrylic on canvas Style: Neo-Cubism / Contemporary Abstract Figuration ________________________________________ Formal Analysis Femme au Café du Louvre (ALECARD0057) represents one of the most emblematic and foundational works of the eponymous cycle, inaugurating in 2000 a pictorial research that would accompany Alessandro Cardamone for over two decades. In this version—still highly experimental yet already fully recognizable within the artist’s language—the female figure emerges as the absolute center of the composition, inscribed within a complex and vibrant geometric structure. The composition is built on a dynamic pyramidal framework, where oblique lines and fragmented color fields generate continuous visual tension. The woman’s body—deconstructed and recomposed into angular planes—retains a coherent plasticity and a strong emotional presence. Light, filtered through shades of ochre, carmine red, blue, and pearl gray, does not describe but constructs: the figure seems to glow from within, as though animated by an inner energy. The face, synthesized in a few essential strokes, conveys both introspection and distance, while the café elements—vases, table, and lamp—dissolve into geometric symbols. The setting is not realistic but mental: a suspended space where matter, color, and thought converge. ________________________________________ Symbolism and Interpretation This work, inspired by a real episode experienced by the artist in 1999 at the Café du Louvre in Paris, transforms an everyday moment into an archetypal image of contemplation. The portrayed woman is not a subject but a symbol—she represents the quiet of thought, the strength of creative solitude, the threshold between the visible and the inner world. The act of sipping tea becomes a meditative ritual; the cup, a simple domestic object, acquires a sacred meaning, symbolizing focus and introspection. The café—an inherently public space—is transfigured into a spiritual one, a “room of the soul” where the woman, as a universal figure, embodies the very idea of contemplation. The cubist language, with its analytical fragmentation, becomes here a means to express the complexity of being: fragmentation as a metaphor for the mind, light as the energy of thought. The figure, though seemingly motionless, vibrates with inner tension—expectation, memory, and presence. ________________________________________ Influences In Femme au Café du Louvre (ALECARD0057), the roots in the Cubism of Picasso and Gris are clearly perceptible, as are echoes of Léger’s synthetic expressionism and Matisse’s chromatic sensitivity. Yet from this early stage, Cardamone introduces a personal and poetic dimension that transcends stylistic citation. The geometric construction recalls the cubist lesson but is enriched with a lyrical and spiritual quality that foreshadows the artist’s mature poetics. The use of acrylic—with its transparency and layering—creates a luminous vibration that lends the work an almost musical character. One can also detect resonances of postwar Italian painting, in its synthesis of figuration and abstraction, though filtered through a cosmopolitan, European language in which Paris represents not only a real place but also a cultural and spiritual myth. ________________________________________ Critical Evaluation This 2000 version constitutes a foundational stage in Alessandro Cardamone’s artistic poetics. It is here that the theme of the “contemplative woman” finds its first iconic and symbolic definition, destined to evolve over the following years. Strengths: • Compositional power and structural clarity combined with palpable emotional intensity. • Masterful use of color as a constructive and psychological element. • Ability to transform an ordinary scene into a universal and metaphysical image. • Balance between formal analysis and inner lyricism. Distinctive Features: • The work defines Cardamone’s visual “vocabulary”: geometric planes, synthesized volumes, inner light. • The tension between real and mental space is particularly evident. • The female figure becomes an archetype rather than a portrait—a symbol of waiting and awareness. In this version—one of the earliest and most significant in the series—the poetic intent is clear: to narrate silence, waiting, and fragmented identity through compositional rigor and emotional openness. The balance between form and feeling transforms the body into a psychic space and the visual fragment into symbol. Every gesture, every gaze, is charged with meaning. With this canvas, Cardamone lays the foundation for his ongoing exploration of the relationship between form and spirituality, turning Cubism from an analytical code into a language of the soul. ________________________________________ Conclusion With Femme au Café du Louvre (ALECARD0057), Alessandro Cardamone opens one of the most fertile lines of his artistic production: the reflection on the female figure as a symbol of interiority and creative energy. For its intensity and vision, this work may be considered the most representative of the entire cycle. Through a painting that unites structural rigor and poetic depth, the artist transforms a personal experience into a universal meditation on solitude, contemplation, and the silent beauty of the everyday. It is a synthesis of geometry and grace, of thought and light—one of the interpretive keys to his entire artistic journey. ________________________________________ Curatorial Note Femme au Café du Louvre (ALECARD0057) is regarded as the original and most symbolically powerful version of the celebrated cycle dedicated to the contemplative female figure. The work marks the birth of Cardamone’s personal neo-cubist language and his approach to painting as a mental and poetic space. Ideal for exhibitions focused on contemporary Cubism and the symbolism of the feminine figure, the work is part of the international collection of the Hong Art Museum in Chongqing, China, where it was exhibited from November 2023 to March 2024. Exhibition Note Exhibited in various European countries. From November 2023 to March 2024, part of the Hong Art Museum collection in Chongqing, China. Critical text written for artistic documentation purposes Basel, 2025
Why collect this work?
Overlapping profiles, angular hands and paired vessels compress a café encounter into a bright, crowded pattern where recognition depends on a few sharply retained features.
- Cardamone describes his practice as “Modern Neo-Cubism” and identifies the female figure as a recurring subject. Here, that intention is supported by the face’s geometric division, although the scene remains more social than purely abstract.
- The photograph shows a central pale profile intersected by a darker face, striped hair and opposing hands. Repeated circles and vase-like forms create lateral symmetry while the figures remain unequally exposed.
- The catalogue identifies this object as a digital print on cotton canvas, while its embedded description also names acrylic on canvas. The photograph cannot resolve that inconsistency or establish surface texture, but reproduction preserves emphatic outlines and saturated colour contrasts.
- The work is particularly useful for considering how café portraiture can retain gestures, glances and tabletop objects after conventional depth has been flattened into signs.
About the Artist
Alessandro Cardamone
Alessandro Cardamone is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Ottiglio, IT.
Nationality: Italian
The Artistic Identity and Technique Alessandro Cardamone’s artistic practice is rooted in a rigorous, independent visual philosophy that he defines...
