José Rodeiro CALUMNATA, oil-on-linen, 72” x 122,” 1987 (Collection of the artist).

During his stay in Barcelona (1986 -88), while meandering thru Antoní Gaudi’s Parc Guell Rodeiro observed a street-gang harming a punk. Rodeiro immediately tried to notify park-officials, prompting the gang, as well as the victim to quickly disperse and disappear. How ironic (Rodeiro mused) that a Modernista (Art Nouveau) colonnade designed for lovers would foster an identical crime like that described in Sandro Botticelli’s Calumny of Apelles. Inspired, Rodeiro returned to his Sarria studio to unleash this spectacular grand manner image of human violence, which predates Stieg Larsson’s Girl Trilogy’s vicious and identical brutality. The title Calumnata is a pun on Gaudi’s Parc Guell’s colonnade and Apelles’s and Botticelli’s Calumny.