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Lot Essay
Created in 1968, Ripiego exemplifes the visual dynamism that characterised Piero Dorazio’s mature paintings, as he continued to explore the optical effects of pure abstraction through the delicate balance of contrasting colour and line. Weaving together radiant bands of colour in a lattice-like pattern of overlapping criss-crosses, the artist creates a kaleidoscopic design reminiscent of a tapestry or quilt, the strong diagonal lines echoing the tightly intertwined threads of fabric. Through this deceptively simple structure, Dorazio proposes a series of complex visual questions, using the canvas as a site for experimentation in which to investigate ideas of perception, luminosity, and the interaction of colour. The title, literally translated as ‘mismatched,’ belies the intricacy of the design and the level of planning the artist put into the construction of the composition. Each band has been delicately threaded into the pattern, its final placement chosen for its relationship to the other streams of colour surrounding it. The bands appear almost like fragments of coloured tape or ribbon, their sharp diagonal edges tapering into a point in one corner, as if they have been cut from a longer strip by a pair of scissors and then tethered to one another to achieve the desired pattern. As they overlap, the colours interact, creating a zone of semi-transparency in which both pigments mingle together to produce a new tone.
Playing with their materiality in this way, Dorazio creates the impression that the tensile bands are in fact streams of pure, spectral light rather than concrete materials, constantly shifting and moving, vibrating towards and away from the front of the canvas as they overlap and converge on one another. As the eye moves downwards through the composition, the strict linear regularity of the pattern is eliberately interrupted by the artist, with several of the interwoven lines gently skewed out of alignment. Shifting ever so slightly onto an incorrect angle, these small adjustments destroy the repetitive, rhythmic progression of the pattern, introducing a slight imperfection, like the wrong thread that the great weavers of the ancient carpets inserted specifically in their masterpieces to make them precious. Dorazio pushes this even further by removing one of the diagonal lines entirely from the pattern as it reaches the right hand corner of the canvas, revealing the clouds of pastel colour which fill the background and creating the impression that the intricate pattern is disintegrating before our very eyes.
Playing with their materiality in this way, Dorazio creates the impression that the tensile bands are in fact streams of pure, spectral light rather than concrete materials, constantly shifting and moving, vibrating towards and away from the front of the canvas as they overlap and converge on one another. As the eye moves downwards through the composition, the strict linear regularity of the pattern is eliberately interrupted by the artist, with several of the interwoven lines gently skewed out of alignment. Shifting ever so slightly onto an incorrect angle, these small adjustments destroy the repetitive, rhythmic progression of the pattern, introducing a slight imperfection, like the wrong thread that the great weavers of the ancient carpets inserted specifically in their masterpieces to make them precious. Dorazio pushes this even further by removing one of the diagonal lines entirely from the pattern as it reaches the right hand corner of the canvas, revealing the clouds of pastel colour which fill the background and creating the impression that the intricate pattern is disintegrating before our very eyes.