#PERSONA_SATYRICONA
101 caricatured pencil portraits of personalities from world history — great people from different eras, characters, and perspectives, presented in a way that will surprise and inspire you.
The title refers to the immortal “Satyricon” by Petronius, the mentor of good taste in the court of the Roman Emperor Nero. “I added an 'A,' and it became 'Satyrikona' — such a word does not exist. It became a new word, a strange but euphonious title. I borrowed this word because satire forever presents societal flaws through the power of art.”
Published in 2020 by “Classics and Style” Publishing House.
Doncho Donchev ©
The Pencil
He's little and sensitive in a childlike way. He has a heart of graphite. He lives somewhere between light and darkness, on the cusp. He passes over from one side to the other. He's searching. He likes to play with rays of light and shadows. He likes the game of opposites. This is where form is born. In the collision of these two forces. He is inspired by it and pursues it passionately. The form that realizes it can exist in all possible ways. He contemplates it and sees it fill with meaning as so many different images become reflected upon its surface. He wants to examine them. He wants to recreate them. But not from what can be seen from the outside, but the other, the deep, the invisible.
After his travails, he returns to that very cusp and begins to draw their destinies. He enters the darkness hastily and breathless. This force often tires him and fragments the shards of his graphite heart. Light creeps through like a cloud on the surface. It brings him fresh breath. He learns to recognise the differences — madness, arousal, pain and joy. The line soars like a bird. He plunges into the deep density of the dark abyss, then rises to the light, barely perceptible touch of supreme tenderness.
Sometimes he throws himself into it with a passion, swirling and violently screeching. The sharpness tears through the space. The pencil strokes rain finely, abundantly irrigating the form. Vertical and horizontal columns emerge to hold the foundations. The cast shadows play their part, supporting, spreading, and at times disappearing. The semitones overflow, they flicker in the air, and bring a truce between the categorically opposed extremes. The reflections are projected with self-loving. They look unrealistically distorted.
Little by little the image acquires an essence, still separated by that cusp. It is in this atmosphere that the Personae–Satyriconae are born. Finally their eyes see. One eye remains immersed in darkness and the other illuminated by light. All the while, he asks himself the question whether he should be there, between the two? Should he exist on the cusp of differences? When he finishes them, he shows them his creation. So that they know. So that they can be seen from within. Let everyone see them. Let everyone discuss and share them. He realizes that they need him. Yes, he is needed there. To create, always to be always alert. To measure.
