Lucio Fontana
Studi per “Teatrini”, 1965-1966
black pen on paper, 31 × 21 cm
Fontana's drawings are a precious document for grasping the essence of his work: they tell us the stages and discoveries of his long artistic itinerary. Even in the drawings, which would be better defined as "anti-drawings" according to the artist's own idea, Fontana escapes from what he defined as "nailed images without signs of vitality" and places himself in antithesis to the academic tradition, but connects to the research of other innovators. Thus, in these papers one could, for example, find the undifferentiated and impalpable matter of Medardo Rosso, the plastic deformation of Rodin, the creative and vibrant sign of Matisse and Klee... Made quickly, with a nervous and dynamic trait, the Fontana's drawings give shape to the artist's emotional tension, fix the flash of an idea and make it concrete and vibrant, or show its subsequent elaboration studies, with great clarity and inventiveness, but without ever becoming a "project for a precise work".
from: Arnaldo Pomodoro, Fontana e gli “antidisegni”, in Lucio Fontana. Le scritture del disegno, exhibition catalogue, edited by G. Bianchino, Milano, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, 2009, p. 25.
