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Lot Essay
‘Art is an angelic, geometric feeling. It addresses the intellect, not the senses.’ (Fausto Melotti, quoted in Fausto Melotti: Sculptures and Works on Paper from 1955 – 1983, exh. cat. Waddington Galleries, London, 2006, p. 37)
Playing with the dichotomy of shadow and light, of concavity and relief, Scultura n. 16 is one of a small group of delicate, abstract white sculptures created by Fausto Melotti for his first solo exhibition, held in 1935 at the Galleria del Milione in Milan. The Galleria del Milione had been founded by the Ghiringhelli brothers in 1930, and quickly became a lively hub for cultural development and the promotion of non-figurative art in Italy. Here, in the library annexed to the gallery, artists could consult European journals such as Cahiers d’Art, Cercle et Carré and Abstraction-Création, whilst exhibitions showcasing the works of such pioneering artists as Wassily Kandinsky opened their eyes to contemporary experiments in abstraction. Melotti joined the group of artists that gravitated around the gallery in 1934, driven perhaps in part by the involvement of his cousin, the artistic theoretician and philosopher Carlo Belli. Finding creative inspiration in this milieu, Melotti began to explore similar concepts of an abstract, objective art, one which reflected the laws of geometry and mathematics, in a pure, minimalist aesthetic.
In many ways, Scultura n. 16 represents the culmination of these experiments. Driven by an inherent sense of order, harmony and precision, traits that Melotti found in Greek architecture, mathematics and music, it is a work defined by its simplicity and purity. Melotti’s passion for music was a particularly important influence for the sculptures he created during the 1930s, as he sought to translate the structures, melodies and rules of musical composition into a visual medium. Looking back on these works almost forty years later, Melotti explicitly pointed to their musical structure, stating: ‘There is a musical space structured in the building of the harmony, and a musical tempo in the scansion of the counterpoint: imitation, canon, variation, even the simple unfolding of the melody. Seeking to connect myself to these principles, in the abstract works of ’34-’35 I also brought into play the renunciation of the turbid pleasures of matter’ (Melotti, quoted in J. de Sanna, Fausto Melotti: Anti-Sculpture, exh. cat. New York, 1994, p. 11). These concepts manifest themselves in the present work, as Melotti builds the sculpture on a careful balance of counterpoint and harmony, exploring the relationships between different iterations of the concave and the convex mark, between positive and negative space, in an elegant dialogue of forms.
The central focus of Scultura n. 16 is a pair of gently sloping ellipses, one raised off the plane and the other carved into the plaster, their edges over-lapping as in a Venn diagram. The different means of their creation grant both ellipses an individual character which simultaneously highlights and contrasts against the opposing ovoid’s construction. The left ellipse, for example, is made up of a series of small, raised circles arranged in a precise pattern, the gaps between each circle carefully and evenly measured. As these circles project off the surface of the composition, they cast elongated shadows on to the pure white plaster, introducing sharply contrasting passages of light and shade to the work. The other ovoid is executed in a pair of unbroken, precisely drawn lines, with the interior of the ellipse divided into four sections by two axes running on perpendicular lines. The sharp geometry of these forms are reinforced by the monochrome palette of Melotti’s work, while the intersection of the two ellipses is a prime example of Melotti’s interest in applying geometric principles to the dynamics of the relationships between these forms too.
This interplay between the incised and the projected form is continued in the double row of circles which traverse the lower register of the sculpture. The size and exact shapes of these hollows directly echo those which appear in the ellipse that hovers above. But, rather than appearing in three-dimensional relief, these circles punctuate the surface of the sculpture, creating a shallow dip which directly contrasts with the projecting circles above. By juxtaposing these identical geometrical shapes in both raised and incised lines alongside one another, Melotti introduces a quiet, dynamic tension to the sculpture, as these elements, which are at once interdependent and independent entities, echo one another in rhythm and contour.
Playing with the dichotomy of shadow and light, of concavity and relief, Scultura n. 16 is one of a small group of delicate, abstract white sculptures created by Fausto Melotti for his first solo exhibition, held in 1935 at the Galleria del Milione in Milan. The Galleria del Milione had been founded by the Ghiringhelli brothers in 1930, and quickly became a lively hub for cultural development and the promotion of non-figurative art in Italy. Here, in the library annexed to the gallery, artists could consult European journals such as Cahiers d’Art, Cercle et Carré and Abstraction-Création, whilst exhibitions showcasing the works of such pioneering artists as Wassily Kandinsky opened their eyes to contemporary experiments in abstraction. Melotti joined the group of artists that gravitated around the gallery in 1934, driven perhaps in part by the involvement of his cousin, the artistic theoretician and philosopher Carlo Belli. Finding creative inspiration in this milieu, Melotti began to explore similar concepts of an abstract, objective art, one which reflected the laws of geometry and mathematics, in a pure, minimalist aesthetic.
In many ways, Scultura n. 16 represents the culmination of these experiments. Driven by an inherent sense of order, harmony and precision, traits that Melotti found in Greek architecture, mathematics and music, it is a work defined by its simplicity and purity. Melotti’s passion for music was a particularly important influence for the sculptures he created during the 1930s, as he sought to translate the structures, melodies and rules of musical composition into a visual medium. Looking back on these works almost forty years later, Melotti explicitly pointed to their musical structure, stating: ‘There is a musical space structured in the building of the harmony, and a musical tempo in the scansion of the counterpoint: imitation, canon, variation, even the simple unfolding of the melody. Seeking to connect myself to these principles, in the abstract works of ’34-’35 I also brought into play the renunciation of the turbid pleasures of matter’ (Melotti, quoted in J. de Sanna, Fausto Melotti: Anti-Sculpture, exh. cat. New York, 1994, p. 11). These concepts manifest themselves in the present work, as Melotti builds the sculpture on a careful balance of counterpoint and harmony, exploring the relationships between different iterations of the concave and the convex mark, between positive and negative space, in an elegant dialogue of forms.
The central focus of Scultura n. 16 is a pair of gently sloping ellipses, one raised off the plane and the other carved into the plaster, their edges over-lapping as in a Venn diagram. The different means of their creation grant both ellipses an individual character which simultaneously highlights and contrasts against the opposing ovoid’s construction. The left ellipse, for example, is made up of a series of small, raised circles arranged in a precise pattern, the gaps between each circle carefully and evenly measured. As these circles project off the surface of the composition, they cast elongated shadows on to the pure white plaster, introducing sharply contrasting passages of light and shade to the work. The other ovoid is executed in a pair of unbroken, precisely drawn lines, with the interior of the ellipse divided into four sections by two axes running on perpendicular lines. The sharp geometry of these forms are reinforced by the monochrome palette of Melotti’s work, while the intersection of the two ellipses is a prime example of Melotti’s interest in applying geometric principles to the dynamics of the relationships between these forms too.
This interplay between the incised and the projected form is continued in the double row of circles which traverse the lower register of the sculpture. The size and exact shapes of these hollows directly echo those which appear in the ellipse that hovers above. But, rather than appearing in three-dimensional relief, these circles punctuate the surface of the sculpture, creating a shallow dip which directly contrasts with the projecting circles above. By juxtaposing these identical geometrical shapes in both raised and incised lines alongside one another, Melotti introduces a quiet, dynamic tension to the sculpture, as these elements, which are at once interdependent and independent entities, echo one another in rhythm and contour.