La scala di Giacobbe (Jacob's Ladder)

Conceived between 1973 to 1985, just before he won the Golden Lion at the 1986 Venice Biennale, Le scale di Giacobbe (Jacob’s Ladder) elegantly captures Fausto Melotti’s whimsical, poetic language. In the ethereal sculpture, thin brass rails support three steps from which serpentine lines and zigzags hang suspended. Biblical stories were a frequent theme for the artist, and the title of the present work refers to the story of Jacob’s dream as recounted in the Book of Genesis. After deceiving his brother Esau, Jacob, fearing for his life, flees for safety in Heran. Along the arduous journey, he stops to rest in Luz and collapses into a deep slumber. He dreams of a radiant ladder connecting heaven and earth that angels both climb and descend, summoned in Melotti’s shining brass that rises towards the sky. Le scale di Giacobbe was planned at a significant moment in Melotti’s career: the year before, he was included in the 36th Venice Biennale and in 1974, he was honoured with the prestigious Rembrandt Prize. At his speech accepting the award, Melotti remembered how, ‘slowly, music ensnared me, disciplining me with its laws, distractions and digressions in a balanced discourse’. Certainly, the fluttering chimes of Le scale di Giacobbe conjure a ‘musical abstraction’, echoing both the angels’ movement as well as the artist’s own musical training: after graduating university, he studied piano, and later began each day in his studio by listening to classical music (F. Melotti, Rembrandt Prize, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, 1974). Le scale di Giacobbe, too, is both visually and acoustically vivid, and in its abstracted, simplified forms, remain the faint traces of a spellbinding dream.