LEGGENDA DI MARE

Leggenda di mare (1951) is an abstract/naturalist work that marks the artist's passage to non-representational art from his Corrente period, with its slightly naive airy primitivism, and the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, characterised by Picasso-esque neo-Cubism. The figures, an anchor and a few small red fish, mix with synthetic, organic forms arranged in cadenced rhythms, while colour resolves the problem of space and distance. The delicate pairings of purple and pink create a poetic landscape and a fairy-tale atmosphere. The paint is applied à plat, with references to the Pont Aven group, and the full, sonorous colour is filled with light, in continuous relation with harmonies and contrasts: «colour is not a material, it is an emotional core». (GF)