Article: From Rome to Copenhagen: The Italian Renaissance Reimagined in Fine Art Photography by Zack Zublena
From Rome to Copenhagen: The Italian Renaissance Reimagined in Fine Art Photography by Zack Zublena
The Italian Renaissance changed forever how the world understands beauty, the human body, light, space and emotion. Centuries later, its visual language remains remarkably alive. It is not a historical style to reproduce, but a source of inspiration to reinterpret. Few nations have been as captivated by Italy as Denmark. Bertel Thorvaldsen lived and worked in Rome for some four decades, becoming one of Europe's most celebrated sculptors. Then the painters of the Danish Golden Age, from C.W. Eckersberg to Constantin Hansen, followed him south to study the Italian light and the classical world.
For French-American fine art photographer Zack Zublena, an artist of Italian origin, the Renaissance becomes a contemporary visual dialogue. Through photography, collage and mixed media, classical figures, golden light, mythology and sculptural forms leave their original context and find a new place in today's interiors.
Discover the Italian Renaissance collection, works between classical beauty, mythology and golden light.
This approach does not attempt to recreate Renaissance painting. It asks a different question: what happens when the visual language of the Italian Renaissance is seen through the lens of contemporary fine art photography?
When Photography Meets the Renaissance
The Renaissance was an extraordinary period of experimentation. Artists explored anatomy, perspective, proportion, architecture, mythology and the relationship between the human figure and the space around it.
In Copenhagen, that legacy is close at hand. SMK – the National Gallery of Denmark holds Italian Renaissance treasures alongside the great works of Danish art. The Thorvaldsens Museum, beside Christiansborg, brings Rome to the heart of the city with its painted walls and luminous marble figures.
Photography offers another way to explore these same ideas. In Zack Zublena's work, the camera becomes a tool for constructing images rather than simply recording reality. The human figure can appear monumental, mysterious or almost architectural. Gold transforms skin into something resembling a gilded sculpture. Shadows create the depth of a fresco.
Archangel Michael, Golden Guardian brings several of these ideas together: the monumental figure, the symbolism of wings and the radiance of gold. The work speaks to Renaissance iconography while remaining unmistakably contemporary.
Light as a Language
Light was never merely a technical element in Renaissance art. It was a language. A face emerging from darkness could become the centre of an entire composition. A hand illuminated against a shadowed background could suddenly become symbolic.
Danes understand this better than most. In a country of long winter evenings, light is almost a philosophy, and candlelight is part of the art of hygge. Danish painters gave the world their own poetry of light: the clear Roman sunlight of the Golden Age masters, the silver glow of Skagen, and the quiet, softly lit interiors of Vilhelm Hammershøi. Zack Zublena works with controlled light and deep tonal contrasts that give his images an almost painterly quality. Gold recalls gilded frames and sacred objects, but in photography it takes on a new physical quality: reflective, atmospheric and contemporary.
Anatomy of the Soul explores the relationship between the human body and the atmosphere that surrounds it. The figure becomes less a portrait of a specific person and more a study of form, identity and the connection between the physical and the symbolic.
The Human Figure as Sculpture
One of the strongest connections between Renaissance art and contemporary fine art photography is the treatment of the human body. Renaissance artists studied anatomy with extraordinary precision, looking back to the sculpture of the ancient world. That world is wonderfully present in Copenhagen at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, whose collection of Greek and Roman sculpture is among the finest in northern Europe.
Photography approaches the same subject from a different direction. Through pose, lighting, cropping and composition, a photographed figure becomes sculptural. Removing unnecessary detail draws the eye to silhouette, muscle, gesture and negative space, a restraint that feels instinctively familiar in the land of Danish design.
Winged Essence pushes this idea further, combining the human figure with wings and a striking visual language of gold and blue. The work evokes religious and mythological imagery without belonging to any single period.
Wings, Myth and the Renaissance Imagination
Wings have filled the imagination of Western art for centuries. Angels, messengers, saints and allegorical figures appear throughout Renaissance painting and sculpture. One of the most moving examples in Denmark hangs at SMK: Andrea Mantegna's Christ as the Suffering Redeemer, in which two angels, rendered with sculptural precision, support the central figure.
Wings can also be read more abstractly: as an image of freedom, transformation, desire, transcendence or the wish to move beyond the physical world.
Wings of Desire plays with this symbolic vocabulary. Its title echoes Wim Wenders' film, known in Denmark as Himlen over Berlin, in which angels watch over the city. Here, the wings are more than ornament. They turn the figure into something ambiguous, suspended between earthly beauty and something almost celestial.
This ambiguity is at the heart of contemporary interpretations of the Renaissance. The aim is not to imitate the past, but to allow its symbols to take on new meanings.
Beauty Without Age
Renaissance imagery still moves us because it understands beauty as something larger than fashion. Its faces, bodies and gestures speak of universal themes: desire, mortality, spirituality, identity, love and the search for meaning.
Symphony of Her Soul approaches the figure through emotion and atmosphere. With its Venetian mask and sheets of music, the image creates a contemporary narrative where music, movement and the human form merge. It recalls an evening at the Royal Danish Theatre, whether in the Opera House across the harbour or the historic Old Stage on Kongens Nytorv.
From the Italian Masters to Contemporary Interiors
The masters of the Renaissance created for architecture: churches, palaces and private residences. Their compositions were designed to interact with the spaces around them.
Contemporary fine art photography can play the same role. A large-format work becomes an architectural element within a room. It can hang in a classic apartment in Østerbro or Frederiksberg, a villa in Hellerup, Klampenborg or Charlottenlund, a harbourfront penthouse in Nordhavn or a summer house in Hornbæk or Skagen. It can also anchor the lobby of a design hotel in Copenhagen or Aarhus. A monumental figure sets the scale. A restrained palette creates atmosphere. Gold brings warmth and luminosity without overwhelming the room with colour, a perfect counterpoint to pale oak floors, linen and the clean lines of Danish modern furniture.
The Gladiator Philosopher shows this relationship between classical visual language and contemporary interiors. The artwork echoes the monumental presence of classical and Renaissance figures while standing as a modern statement piece.
The Renaissance as a Living Language
Perhaps the most fascinating way to approach the Italian Renaissance today is not as a period that ended centuries ago, but as a visual language that keeps evolving. That language is built from the human body, dramatic light, mythology, architecture, symbolism, gold and gesture, and from the bond between beauty and emotion.
These elements can be photographed, digitally constructed, collaged and reinterpreted. They can even be deliberately freed from their historical context, much as the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk sets art in constant dialogue with landscape and light.
Serpent of Light introduces another archetypal symbol: the serpent. Set against a Pompeii fresco, it brings together mythology, temptation, transformation and mystery, and builds a bridge between ancient imagery and contemporary fine art photography.
The Body, Light and the Classical Ideal
The Renaissance fascination with the human figure was deeply connected to the classical world. No Dane embodied that ideal more completely than Thorvaldsen. His Jason and his serene marble figures, shaped in Rome, brought the harmony of antiquity home to Copenhagen, and they can still be seen in the museum that bears his name.
Contemporary photography can revisit this classical ideal without treating it as an absolute standard. The body becomes a material for composition: a line, a silhouette, a volume and a source of light.
Golden Tension explores this relationship through the male figure. The tension between body, light and shadow gives the image a sculptural strength while firmly rooting it in contemporary fine art photography.
A Meaningful Gift for the Holiday Season
Finding the right gift for someone who loves art, design, architecture and beautiful interiors is never easy. An artwork offers something different. It is not simply a gift to unwrap, but a piece that becomes part of a home and stays meaningful for years.
For those drawn to the beauty of the Italian Renaissance, classical figures, mythology and golden light, a contemporary fine art photograph inspired by this tradition is a deeply personal choice for the holiday season. For collectors in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg and along the North Zealand coast, it is also a way to bring warmth and golden light into a Danish home during the darkest months of the year.
If you are looking for a unique gift for someone who already has everything, an original work of art can be one of the most personal choices you can make.
The Past, Seen Through a New Lens
The Italian Renaissance does not need to be recreated to remain relevant. Its ideas can be transformed. Its symbols can be questioned, simplified and reimagined. Its fascination with the human figure can become contemporary photography, its dramatic use of light a new atmosphere, and its mythology the starting point for entirely new stories.
Through gold, light, bodies, wings, mythology and emotion, Zack Zublena explores that vocabulary. His works look toward the past while belonging firmly to the present.
Explore the Italian Renaissance collection and discover contemporary fine art photography inspired by classical beauty, mythology and the timeless visual language of the Renaissance.
