Lucio Fontana

The same artist who carved, painted and fired small ceramic figures borrowed from medieval European folkloric tradition also slashed his modern, abstract canvases.

Argentinian-born, Italian artist Lucio Fontana lived through the first half of the twentieth century and responded to the cultural currents of his time. Modernism, Futurism, Catholicism, the recuperation of archaic art materials and the development of installation art were the movements (some of which veered to the left, others to the right) that informed his practice. Fontana even added his own manifesto to an era that was rich in new ideas. He called himself and his followers Spatialists, people who sought to transcend the restrictions of traditional genres in order to create art that could synthesize colour, movement, sound and space.

In the case of Fontana's small clay sculptures (made at the same time that he began experimenting with rough perforations and smooth cuts to his canvases) the subject matter was traditional — he crafted harlequins, warriors, battles and Christ-figures on the Cross. And yet, the odd colours, the shiny glaze, the active or emotive stance of the characters proclaimed a new way of seeing. In Fontana's hands, a Harlequin (a comic servant from Renaissance Italian musical theatre) could be made of traditional clay, be glazed like an Etruscan pot, declaim like a Baroque statue and exaggerate the rough texture of some of Rodin's and Giacometti's work.  

Fontana's perforated and slashed paintings, despite their apparent simplicity, also subvert established ideas. These paintings become three dimensional, not through trompe l'oeil or perspectival lines but through the effect of the light behind the canvas coming through the tear, giving physical depth and a changing vista to the viewer — the eye receives differing impressions as it moves from one end of the canvas to the other.

The simultaneously brittle and flowing look of the small sculptures and the shimmering optical effect of these paintings cannot be reproduced by photography. Lucio Fontana's work is interactive and only a trip to a museum will do.

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