Page 23 - Studio International - September 1973

The climate

of the first
Italian abstract

movement

Guido Ballo

`Geometry, which has always been the highest
human aspiration, is the key to our maturity.
With its inflexible and infinite laws, it refuses
every arbitrary restraint of the creative
imagination. It is the common denominator of
all modern civilization, the axis of our everyday
activity in every field. Hence the value of
formulae, of the mystery of number, of golden
sections, of structure, and the continuous
relations with rational architecture. It is to the
certainty of the idea, to truth fixed beyond
time, to essence, that value is given. Art is. It is
therefore no other thing outside itself. Art is not
pain, is not pleasure, is not hot, is not cold. It is
nowise a human fact. The work of art tolerates
the intrusion of the artist. It is responsible to
him for nothing. He is nothing but its public,
with which it has no relations whatsoever.'
In his book Kn, thus wrote Carlo Belli, (Above)
theoretician and animator of the first Italian D. Licini
group of abstract artists. In his essay, published Bilico 1934
Coll. Licini, Livorno
in March of 1935 (now reissued by Scheiwiller,
Milan 1972. Trans.), a poetics of neo-plastic (Left)
D. Licini
origin gave a new value to geometry, to the Archipittura 1936
pure invention of relationships, along with a Detail
revival of classicism in non-figurative terms, in Coll. Levi, Milan
contrast, anyway, to romantic disquiet,
expressionist aggressiveness or
post-impressionist evocations; in contrast to the
`facture' of brush stroke and modelling, in
favour of modulation and of limpidity and
precision of idea. However, leaving aside the
dogmatic assertion that art would be 'nowise
a human fact' (when all thought is by its very
nature a human product), these polemical
affirmations of Belli end up echoing idealist
aesthetics, of Croce particularly, which, from
other standpoints, they were intended to oppose.
The detachment with which intuition
69