The Italian Cultural Institute in Strasbourg is organizing “Primavera” (“Spring”), an exhibition by painter Farhad Ostovani inspired by Dante Alighieri’s “Vita Nova” to celebrate the 7th anniversary of the poet’s death.
The exhibition, which is scheduled to run until 4 May, displays 33 watercolors (composed with crayons and pigments on photographic supports) to accompany the 33 sonnets contained in Dante’s youthful work: an elegy in prose and poetry written around 1295 in which the poet describes his meeting with the young Beatrice, his love for her and the premature death of his beloved, which was decisive for the writing of his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy.
Farhad Ostovani lives and works in Paris. Born in Iran, he began painting when he was twelve years old. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran in 1970 before being admitted to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. In 2014, he was awarded the Grand Prix de Bibliophilie (Prix Jean Lurçat) from the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
