To understand the works better, it is useful to know that:
- The colours used in the paintings are symbolic and are not those which may suggest earth, vegetation, things or people as seen with the physical eye.
- A deliberate attempt has been made to connect with a non-external vision of the world through the use of those symbols which, in various traditions and schools of thought, have been used over time to direct attention toward the internal world with its battles and its more or less conscious search for its meaning.
- The drapery and curtains which often frame the works are included to indicate that the represented image refers to forces that take place inside one’s being.
- The use of veils and drapery to indicate that the scene takes place within has been taken from traditional sacred iconography.
- Classic size, three-dimensionality and prospective of the subjects have been deliberately overlooked to propose a an image of strong symbolic value in which the way one lives and feels is of greater importance than the objectivity of seeing.
- The particulars of faces are rarely painted in order to accentuate the sense of universality.
- The symbols used recall themes found in a creative period in the Middle Ages, such as Holy Grail literature at the time of the Knights Templar in France and Germany, Alchemy and Hermeticism which is at its heart. Last, but not least, reference is made to the rich Christian symbology that with the Romanesque, Cistercian and Gothic periods marked fundamental stages to allegorize meanings of great spiritual value.
“Luisa Del Campana’sgreat canvases are alive with a symbolic and ancestoral universe where the ancient mystic, the kind word and alchemical initiation of medieval ascendancy are mixed in themes, figures and subjects with strongly volumetric and heavenly impalpable connotations; the language and colours of the past – which are almost timeless over the centuries – combine with the unreal lines and tones of Expressionism and backgrounds which reject classic prospective, and are ‘medievalized’ cubist in form with skilful Liberty-style embellishments. Thus the fables of the past, full of angels and demons, damsels and knights, become philosophical and existentialist metaphors for the future of Humanity; there is a direct connection between the past and what is to come, provocatively annulling the reality of the present. Her paintings rise up to glowing chromatic vibrations of miniatures and cathedral widows of a coming medieval time, in the search for a science-fictionally Wagnerian ‘philosopher’s stone’ “.
Giampaolo Trotta
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