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Lucio Fontana at La Scala

by Vittoria Crespi Morbio.
Essay by Vittoria Crespi Morbio,“Painting is entirely in the idea”.
Appendices: biography; catalogue of works (edited by Giulia Belletti); chronology of performances.
Collection «Performing Artists at La Scala».
Amici della Scala – Grafiche Step Editrice, Parma, 2014. Italian edition, pp. 67.

One of the most representative 20th-century conceptual artists, Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) tended to figuration when he worked for the theatre, designing sets and costumes for a ballet by Goffredo Petrassi, Ritratto di Don Chisciotte (Portrait of Don Quixote) performed at La Scala in 1967. His sketches are suggestions of colour, weightless trails of graphic signs conveying the idea of motion, the presentiment of dance. A dematerialised theatre consisting of colour and light, perhaps utopian, certainly the seal of a genius for whom “painting is entirely in the idea”.