Page 34 - Studio International - July 1965

a study of his complex personality, an examination of
which is so essential to an understanding of his art. In
fact. his art, as displayed within the last five or six
years (from the first expressionist phase to a more con­
trolled but somewhat dull post-cubist phase) is
essentially a series of 'impressions' of the total per­
sonality of the man himself-a man with many sides to
his character and many interests: all this is expressed
upon the canvas.
Man has always sought to leave a trace of his individu­
ality somewhere; to make his sign-his impression (as
is shown by those marks of primitive man that may be
discerned in the caves and rocks of antiquity). Toti has
succeeded in leaving an impression of his personality on
his canvas by means of a painterly technique that he has
developed himself and which consists of a kind of
continual 'immolation· of the artist, an activity that is
both self-sacrificial and externally motivated. This is a
recurrent process in each of his new paintings.
Perhaps, indeed. the impressions of Scialoja are unique
examples of the presentation of a process of 'becoming·,
magically arrested by virtue of the creative act itself. This
stilling of a movement is really a sequence of pauses and
actions which transform the canvas from static space
into a form of 'chronological' space. within a succession
of moments. The interval of space that informs the
individual impression has something of the quality of
musical space. It is space that signifies times and time;
it is efficacious in that its dimensions are not to be
measured in centimetres. but counted as minutes.
Toti. within ordinary perennial space and time. is
vouchsafed the power to lay bare, through the act of
physical impression. a chromatic. dense and clotted
mass that extends beyond the bounds of any particular
canvas to infuse into another form of space a new plastic
element. This he does precisely because he creates the
possibility of repeating a 'sign· in such a way that all is
moulded with identical power in the same direction and
yet, paradoxically, with unforeseen diversity of power in
a totally different direction. 'Unforeseen' is a necessary
term, since it is unquestionably impossible to foresee or
predetermine with any exactitude what will be the
exact result; but this peculiar absence of premeditation
Photo: Marianne Adelmann
determines the larger part of the effect that is finally
achieved. The quality referred to is the very essence
of dialectical chance (the Zufalligkeit of which Hegel
speaks) which is rarely absent from an authentic work
of art; it must be controlled and directed by the volition
of the artist and not left as a pure statement of its own
value, as so often happens in 'tachist' paintings.
Such truly 'impressionist' painting allows the artist to
retain intact his remarkable gifts as a colourist and
moulder of plastic form; it also allows him to develop
with more adequate expression his individual syntax of
composition. The possibilities offered by such impres­
sionist work can. in fact, have the most varied results:
the simple repetition of impressions. suddenly modified
by the intervention or the addition of different materials
-collages of paper scraps and newspapers-the super­
imposition of stratifications. At a later stage, the surface
1 is intersected by exact demarcation lines obtained by
Ripetizione sabbia 1958 the insertion of string or thread. Then come paper.
145 x 245 cm.
embroidery and the 'sinews· of the work (transparent
2 gauze arranged in arabesques to provide a 'prefabri­
Erewhon 1964
60 x 100 cm. cated' element).
J In 1959. our artist made his first experiments in insert­
Due che si apre 1962 ing large fragments of rope into his impressions; in 1961
63 x 80 cm.
Collection: Henry Galy-Carles. Paris came the addition of a series of stratifications, of trans-
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