THE LITURGICAL AND SACRED ART OF PROFESSOR EMERITUS PETER BAGNOLO

CONTACT INFORMATION: Email: Pete@Bagnoloart.com

Professor Bagnolo is truly a Renaissance man in the fullest sense of the term: Architectural designer, painter, sculptor, writer, novelist, illustrator, intellectual, liturgical consultant, inventor, and former CEO/creative director of an advertising agency, with offices in three cities, he came back to Fine Art after selling his agency.

Stricken with polio at age six and bedridden for 18 months, upon returning Peter’s parents were approached by wise principal Mr. Nowinson and were offered for him to skip three grades. Since this would have had him graduating grammar school at age 10, high school at age 14 and college at age 18, graduate school at age 20-21. Although honored by the offer, His parents thought that the social repercussions were not attractive for Peter.

None-the-less, he was a recipient of a Gifted or Child Prodigy Art Institute Scholarship in painting and drawing at age 11, but because of after effects of his polio, and some relapse of muscular atrophication, his doctor and parents refused to allow him to attend classes. Despite his polio and parental restrictions, he later became a slugging baseball player (shortstop and pitcher) talented enough to gain try-outs and contract offers from several major league ball clubs at age 16-18. At that time, one had to be 21 years of age for a contract to be valid but still his parents refused the bonus offers, preferring him to go to college instead. They would rather have him become an architect or doctor or college professor like one of his uncles than a baseball player. He was also displaying prodigious spiritual giftedness a phenomenon that many of his family shared.

He became a Ford Foundation Fellowship Recipient in college, and was the first of only 12 out of 1200 accepted into a special program as a result. He later won a full tuition Talent-merit/gifted scholarship for his figure paintings in his senior year, the first such award granted in 25 years at his university. The University credited him with a triple bachelor's degree in Painting and Drawing, Architectural/Exhibition Design and Advertising - the last they ever granted, and a minor in Cultural Anthropology (which actually qualifies as a Major). Uncertain of how to present his much faceted degree, they titled it formally: Environmental Design.

Lothar Wittebourg, Director of the Field Museum Department of Exhibition Design, mentored him through the exhibition/architectural segment. His graduate architectural structural model, plans, and thesis, with Witteborg's mentoring and input, may have played a part in influencing a new trend - the Museum's 75th Anniversary Planning Exhibition. He was also responsible for a great many large scale stained glass projects, sometimes in collaboration with others, sometimes designing the color scale presentation art, sometimes doing the full-size and working drawings for the windows, sometimes choosing the many colored glass pieces for the entire window and at other times doing all of those things, depending upon his availability.

Professor Bagnolo worked on plans and designs for Holy Cross Hospital, St. John Vianney Church, and a variety of other churches, hospitals and chapels including Stone Park Seminary Chapel with Architect Joseph W. Bagnuolo, his paternal uncle and the Old DaPrato Studios of Chicago, in which he collaborated with other artists on much of the art in the West Wing of Queen of Heaven Mausoleum in Hillside Illinois, and in recent years among other projects, a large painting of Jesus and a shrine of Bernadette of Lourdes for St. Matthew Church in Schaumberg and the design of a large Stained glass window, furnishings and Statue of the BVM in Resurrection Cemetery in Winfield Illinois, in collaboration with Joseph Taschetta of Wheaton Religious Goods in Wheaton Illinois, Bagnolo’s town of residence.

Now as painter, architectural designer of interiors, monumental interior and exterior art, in metal, wood, stone, resin or paint, his art is representative of the best and most lively liturgical and sacred art in America. Bagnolo deplores the inept, stilted, stiff, stick like figures that monopolize liturgical and sacred art today.

“If our religion were as stiff and stilted as the art some churches now employ, people would rather go to art museums than to church on Sundays. I think those involved in some phases of church decoration and appointments, art in various media are often sadly misinformed about what will and will not inspire most people. The trend of some churches toward primitive and iconic art is a bit unnerving since we no longer live in the 12 th century, but in it’s advanced symmetrical, bookend counterpart, the 21 st century. I greatly admire and have been influenced by the greatest artists of the past, but always those who led and innovated, those whose work was copied or mimicked, rather than those who copied or mimicked the art of others. I have turned down substantial projects, when after seeing my work and praising it, clients insisted that I copy the work of some other artist living or dead. I don’t design, sculpt, paint or draw to copy ancient artists, living or dead . God gives some artists their own individual gift and does not smile on copycats. If God wanted me to do art of primitive, ancient times, he would have allowed me to be born in ancient, primitive times. What stands between me and ancient, primitive art is nearly two thousand years of advancing theology, technology, and evolving understanding in study, research, science, art, and Jesus on the cross. I do not do art to live-I live to do art, and whether I do the art for myself or clients is immaterial, as long as I do art.”

When Bagnolo paints, his work whether surreal, realistic, slickly painted, or thick, rapid and vigorous brush strokes in a painterly Impressionism, more favors the art of the Italian and Spanish Impressionists, than the French, and he is also strongly influenced by John Singer Sergeant, Sir Francis (Frank) Brangwyn, Dean Cornwell and the American illustrators of the Brandywine era and beyond, Vincenzo Irolli of the Italian Macheolli, Joaquin Sorolla, the great Spanish Impressionist, Michelangelo, Rubens, and Tiepolo, and wishes he could even approach their great skill in his own way and style.

Professor Bagnolo's paintings are usually brightly colored and he is fond of the smoothly blended Blurry “Lost” edges and the sharply defined, “Found” edges (or Hard edges) which have made his work so distinctive. He paints he says, what he sees and what he sees is affected by what he feels. His art is at times heroic in scale, fantastic in imagination and mystical in conception.

Professor Bagnolo strives to make the figures he designs as real as is feasible within the strictures and covenants of the project and the ambiance surrounding the piece on which he is working. Because his main interest is figures, he paints fewer landscapes, seascapes and still-life, however, he uses them as backgrounds, because he says, such natural elements contain the visible spirit of their Creator.

How does he work? He always begins with small-scale thumbnail sketches in ink, pencil, or watercolor. Then when satisfied, depending on size, complexity, and media, he poses, lights, and photographs his models (usually his wife, himself and friends) and proceeds from the sketches and photos to larger scale art. When doing work created for commissions or for his private collections, he makes mixed media preliminary paintings, which he keeps for his private sales limited almost exclusively for new collectors. When he paints, his studio is adorned with the work of his favorite artists and he studies the great masters daily, always hoping to find a new way of solving a complex painting problem, with their help.

Some of his figure paintings are tastefully erotic and still others are more representative of the giftedness of a highly intelligent, well-educated man with the playful interests of a child.

“I love designing stained glass and sculpture and learned under the best; Italo Botti, Angelo Gherardi, Lawrence Campbell, Urano Bottari and many others. Working side-by-side with such great men at Old DaPrato Studios was an inspiration. I also love doing architectural design. That I learned not only in school studying architecture, but working for my Uncle Joseph W. Bagnuolo, the great Catholic church, school and hospital architect.”

Mostly his work strives for a certain kind of realistic anatomical perfection, and when he paints, his brush strokes are rapid and vigorous. In some of his compositions he takes creative liberty to recreate the human figure beyond it’s corporeal limitations by hyperbolizing anatomical structural details to promote an aesthetic otherwise impossible to attain, (an aesthetic Michelangelo used to great advantage.) When once asked why someone so obviously able to create minute details, on occasion, appears to shun them, he gave the following reply:

"Painting is fun, but what leads up to the finished product is very disciplined, detailed work. Having done the hard work first, I like to have fun with the final piece. I don’t ignore background or foreground details if they are a requirement for the image to work, but sometimes I think background details are a distraction and thus I take a strict impressionist view of them. I am usually so anxious to get to the figure that I paint the surrounding material first and in that way, like a kid looking forward to a dessert, I save the best until last. I rarely paint urban scenes because, while I find that what men create in the urban environment interesting, the scenes often carry with them a certain depressing sterility which is not as interesting nor as colorfully refreshing to me as the natural environment.”

"I love the beauty, symmetry and asymmetry of natural forms. There are occasions when I paint a beautiful woman, or a majestic athletic figure or a tree or a mountain, I think of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and Last Judgment. I was so in awe I nearly moved to Italy just to see it regularly. When you contemplate that God gave him that skill, you then greatly admire the greatness of the Mind of God. To me, attempting to give an impression of what I believe to be God’s intention when He created each thing I admire, and do it in my own way, the way which God entrusted to me, however, humble my skill may be, is the real satisfaction and fun of painting. I think, ‘If God were a man, how would He do this?’ But He, the One who builds universes, and everything within them, does not need tools and supplies, He, the true scientist and artist, begins with nothingness, and from an incalculable distance in time, space and dimension, combines, in some unknown way, the Breath of God, with alpha-numeric's, geometry, mathematics, an inestimable combination of intellect, art, Science and logic, creates the seeds which evolve and grow, like all living matter, into functioning inorganic and organic creations. We cannot create matter from nothingness, however, He passed a form of His Creativity on to us as a gift, although much reduced and in moderation. Therefore, my work, however unworthy, is a gift back to God, although I do charge humans for my efforts.”

Professor Bagnolo is, by his advanced theological knowledge, his artistic skill and architectural excellence, the living embodiment of a Liturgical Consultant.

If you have any interest in having him quote either for your project, either remodeling or new construction for custom, liturgical or sacred art for create an architectural, liturgically proper entire interior, or stained glass, statuary, painting, mosaic, for an entire ambiance or just a single piece, please write:

Or Call 630-510-7979, x-1.