The study is part of a series of ten preparatory sketches for 'The Great God Pan', a monumental drawing made in 2020.
At the origin of its creation lies the monumental fresco “Inferno” by Giovanni da Modena at the San Petronio Cathedral in Bologna. The study was made in 2014, shortly after the artist’s confrontation with the fresco painting. The composition of Da Modena’s fresco was used as a blueprint for this study. After defining the general composition, Peter Depelchin started sketching parts of the “inferno” in new studies. At that time, he still considered making a large inferno himself.
Through the years, Peter Depelchin grew as an artistic semiologist, treating signs, iconography, meaning and their ambiguity. Often, he introduces a contortion of meaning into his artworks, not rarely seen as confrontational. It took six long years for the artist to mature his ideas and composition resulting in the 2020 version of the inferno: “The Great God Pan”. Typically, Depelchin makes lots of notes on his sketches. The artist needs these notes because often he reuses the sketches after years of interval. This working process requires notes, studies and a broad associative thinking process.
The 10 studies of this series are honest and pure representations of Depelchin’s artistic process.