Three reasons I feel differently about Vin Vicini
Steve Thompson, aware of my strong feelings about the paintings of Sharon Moody, alerted me to the comics-inspired art of Vin Vicini. Funny thing is, in spite of what could be seen as superficial similarities, the new images I saw didn’t bother me at all. So let’s take a look at a couple of Vicini’s paintings, and then I’ll explain why.
First, a 12″ x 12″ oil painting titled “Chapter 7: ‘Catch the Hero.’”
This first example includes details from the covers of Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964), Batman #219 (February 1970), and Avengers #35 (December 1966), all of which I’ve rotated so you can more easily compare them to how they were used above.
Here’s one more, “Batman and the Crate,” an 11″ x 14″ oil painting.
This one includes fragments of Batman #1 (Spring 1940), Detective #126 (August 1947), and Batman #11 (June-July 1942).
Why wasn’t I perturbed by these as I was by the Sharon Moody pieces? Perhaps you don’t see them as very different at all, but I do, for three clear reasons:
First off, Vicini used only fragments from each cover, rather the entire original composition, so that the power of his pieces don’t come wholly from Neal Adams or Don Heck or Steve Ditko. He used slivers of each original to create something new, and so his paintings do not depend solely on the original artist for whatever power there is to his own art. He brought something to these paintings more than just the energy of what had existed in the first place. He didn’t merely piggyback on the talents of those great artists, he added something new to them via the choices in his compositions.
Also, Vicini truly treats the comics like objects in a way that Moody, in my opinion, did not. With the Moody’s I showed you earlier, I felt that the heavy lifting was being done by Jack Kirby, Ross Andru, and the others,, something I still believe even after seeing her pieces in person. But when I look at “Chapter 7: ‘Catch the Hero’” or “Batman and the Crate,” my enjoyment comes from more than just being blown away by the work crafted by others.
And finally-did you notice how Vicini did more than copy the originals, but made tweaks to some of the covers to better fit his compositions as a whole? Do you see how the horizontal telephone wires from the Detective cover were eliminated? How the background webbing of the Spider-Man was de-emphasized and its background color changed as well? These artistic alterations in the service of the whole are meaningful toward showing something new is being created here.
Maybe you’ll disagree, but all these things rolled together means that when I look at these I’m not immediately thinking, “Ah, Jack Burnley,” but instead admiring Vicini for what he’s done.
Do you agree with my distinctions or not? Either way, I’d love to hear what you think as I continue to wrestle with this issue.
Originally published at Scott Edelman. You can comment here or there.