| One of the main virtues of Lino Cataldi’s work has always been its suggestion of both
a daring release of spontaneous, exuberant energy and an utter security in controlling
all elements of the composition. In his latest paintings he exemplifies the same
tense balance, but there is a greater freedom than ever in his depiction of energies.
These energies are no longer embodied in human forms or indeed in any immediately
recognizable or sharply outlined shapes. Still one understands that they are the concrete
energies of the natural world--the interacting movements of the elements of air, water, fire,
and earth. The paintings derive from actual places in which the artist has observed the
wind stirring clouds, trees and birds, the water of powerfully flowing rivers and cascades,
the moonlight and the sunlight playing in skies, seas and earth, and the earth itself
pierced by deep caverns. Instead of enclosing his impressions, them, in more or less firm
and realistic shapes, he has created a sense of compositional coherence largely through
his control of colours. The areas of excitingly bright but never garish colours -- specially
greens, blues, reds, black -- are endlessly shaded into each other. The particular shades
may radiate out in chromatic progressions from a focal point or enter other relationships
that draw the whole animated composition into harmony. In the painting reproduced here,
the balancing of the shadowed colours on the left and the same colours brightly lit on the
right is especially satisfying.
The paintings have become stages in an imaginary journey that is also a quest for some
secret meaning in nature. Each painting suggests some hidden element, perhaps a source
from which all the energies flow. Not only the caverns but also the castle hinted at in the
distance may contain the secret location. The clouds seem similarly to be composed of
layer upon layer of mist, constantly forming and dissipating. In this play of ever-changing,
superimposed strata, the canvas itself seems to participate.
As its texture shows up here or there, it seems itself one of the veils rather than the
absolute backing and limit of the composition. One gathers that the ultimate secret will
never be revealed, and it probably does not really exist. But the tantalizing search for it is
life itself, and it is sufficiently engrossing to inspire the artist.
The colours and shapes encountered on this journey naturally symbolize a psychological
landscape too. Here the viewer is pleased to sense that the artist finds his activity a joyful
one. The energies he has dared to release are powerful but not dangerously beyond
control. The secret that may be located in the caverns - or the nullity if it should come
to that - is by no means threatening. Even the blackness is a matter of rich and various
shades that contribute to the harmony of a courageous composition. |
