Postcard “Christmas 2012”

A Christmas postcard signed by Marco Ventura. No stranger to this kind of adventures the Milanese illustrator who in 2007, on behalf of the British Royal Mail, created a sketch for an issue dedicated to the nativity that was printed in more than 200 million copies. This time, it is a reproduction of an oil on panel, “Madonna with Child,” to be used by the Philatelic and Numismatic Autonomous Company for this ”off season.” The image, which depicts in the background the hills leading to San Marino, features the Blessed Virgin Mary in the foreground in a singular and striking reproduction. In the virgin's arms is Jesus and above them the two Archangels. The figures portrayed intend to bring back the sacredness of the family within a contemporary context, spurious from prosaic contaminations, but at the same time very much akin to and respectful of the Christian tradition. A modernity, which thanks to the different inclinations of light blue and blue, dominant in the panel, allows the user eye to enter the field of Mystery with the delicate and reassuring step of the sensible wayfarer. Therefore, the faces of the protagonists, sober and measured, succeed in leading this work away from the aestheticizing pretensions that often risk obscuring the true overall picture and the intrinsic meaning, inherent in the concept of Mother. A postcard, that of the AASFN, which is made explicit as a work of art within the beauty of simplicity. The postcard bears on the front in the center the oil-on-board painting “Madonna and Child” by Marco Ventura; in the background, at the top are two Angels in modern version one of which holds a scroll with the legend “AVE MARIA,” at the bottom are depicted the First and Second Towers of San Marino; the back of the postcard depicts, on the right, the franking imprint reproducing what is represented on the front; completing the franking imprint is the value “0.60”, the legend “SAN MARINO”, the year of issue, the polygraph and the name of the author of the sketch “M. VENTURA.”