Jose Salvaggio interview By Realism Without Borders

RWB: Talk about you … how did you come into painting? Jose Salvaggio: I always loved paintings. Very young I always draw. I started painting when I met a local artist who really helped me progressed. And especially, everything started when I retired from being a musician and focus full time on my paintings. RWB: What influenced your art the most? Salvaggio: When I began, I was really interested by the Dutch golden age painters. I did a lot of copies. Little by little, I was going to the muse du Jeu de Paume in Paris, and I saw and loved the impressionist painters. Since then, I follow this tradition.

RWB: So you are influenced by the French impressionists? Any other? Salvaggio: All the Masters. Monet and Sisley especially and since couple years already I am influenced by the post impressionist painter Pierre Eugene Montezin, who died in 1946. RWB: How do you decide what you are going to paint? Salvaggio: For me, two things are important. First, the light and second the composition. I need to find subject with a deepness to give to the viewer the will to walk into the painting. RWB: Could you describe your painting process? Salvaggio: I always prepare my canvases with a warm grey tone in acrylic. I draw rapidly where my main subject is placed on the canvas, I paint rapidly the principal masses (shadow, Light) then, I go back on those masses to describe them trying to get the final color in one go. At the end, I add highlights to make the painting vibrant.

RWB: You paint a lot in France, would it be any other country you would like to paint? Salvaggio: I painted in Italy, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland… but France already have all the landscapes… you just need to travel. RWB: What would you like to paint that you did not yet? Salvaggio: I would like to do figures and portraits.

RWB: Advice to young artists? Salvaggio: Work, work, work… RWB: Would you like to add something? Salvaggio: There is painters I would like to meet… Like Antonin Passemard and some Russian painters I just discovered.