Leonard DiCapriovinci is a direct, if illegitimate descendant of the famous Italian painter and inventor. He specialized in faking reproductions of paintings made by his famous distant relative, despite several lengthy jail terms. At a particularly despairing point in his career he produced "Madonna on the Rocks," in which the almost perfectly-imitated older canvas is enhanced (some critics have said "laughably spoilt") by the introduction of a nearly empty bottle of Southern Comfort into the composition. The artist defends his vision in his autobiography, Son of a Velvet Elvis:

 

"... so, the way I saw it, here's this young broad, she gets knocked up by person or persons unknown, then they marry her off to this old geezer of a carpenter, who must have blown a fuse when he spots the maternity wedding garment, and so bingo! all of a sudden here she is, she's what, 15-16 — they married them off young in those days, her life is something you see on Geraldo, so of course she's going to hit the old hooch. I mean, look at that expression! She can't even afford a diaper for the kid, and the kid, he's got the expression like he just left a load in her lap and she's too pickled to notice it yet."

 

BACK          NEXT