Sunniness in Paintings

Description

Since the middle of the twentieth century, visual art has displayed an ambivalent nature, torn between the poles of abstractionism and realism, conceptual and postmodern, classicist nostalgia and the violent provocation for its own sake. This essay builds an argument in favor of tracing a different path for the visual arts, in which art might be able to recover its fullness and universality. The artists analyzed in this volume – starting with Hopper and Balthus, singled out as precursors – appear to be following this shared path, even though they belong to different generations. Only very recently we have witnessed the emergence of a radical change of perspective, which refounds our notions of aesthetics: according to Vitale, there exists a timeless dimension of art that can only emerge from the work itself, from special techniques where opposite elements become reconciled. As in the art of Ancient Greece or the Middle Ages, as well as of more remote and exotic cultures, abstract...