Description

There is a quiet dissonance within Anemico Viola, a resonance that bypasses the eye and settles directly into the intellect—a distilled poetics of absence. In this luminous work from 1998, Mario Schifano, ever the alchemist of image and medium, pushes his deconstruction of the landscape genre into a terrain that is both spectral and saturated, elusive yet immediate.

Part of the broader and philosophically charged Paesaggio Anemico cycle, Anemico Viola offers neither the lushness of nature nor the idealized arcadia of tradition. Instead, it presents a landscape denuded, filtered through layers of media, memory, and mechanization. The title itself—”anemic”—is not a lament, but a provocation. What is a landscape when its lifeblood is siphoned off, leaving behind only the syntax of horizon and hue?

Here, violet dominates: not as color, but as condition. It is a state of chromatic meditation, a veil between vision and meaning. Silkscreen overlays meet mixed media interventions—inks, industrial residues, and painterly gestures coalescing into a surface that is at once manufactured and intimate. Each mark appears as though it resists permanence, echoing Schifano’s fascination with ephemerality in an age of infinite reproduction.

This work, bearing the discreet marking of PA (Prova d’Artista), belongs to a subset traditionally held back from market circulation—artworks reserved for the artist’s own dialogue with patrons, collaborators, and confidants. It is an edition inscribed not only with scarcity but with a kind of coded proximity to the artist’s inner world.

Schifano was not depicting a place, but performing a question: What remains of landscape when it ceases to be a view and becomes instead a vibration? In Anemico Viola, the answer is not clarity, but reverberation—a visual hum that outlasts the glance, and lingers like a half-remembered dream.

This piece is not simply to be viewed; it is to be entered, intellectually, emotionally—like a fog of thought made visible.

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About Paesaggio Anemico series

Mario Schifano’s Paesaggio Anemico series stands as a profound exploration of the landscape genre, reimagined through the lens of mid-20th-century sensibilities. Emerging in 1963, these works mark a pivotal shift in Schifano’s oeuvre, moving from the vibrant hues of Pop Art to a more introspective and deconstructed approach to landscape painting.

The term “anemico” (anaemic) aptly captures the essence of these pieces: landscapes that are stripped of their traditional vitality, presenting instead a distilled, almost skeletal representation of nature. Schifano employs industrial enamel paints to create flat planes of color, punctuated by geometric striations and gestural marks. This technique not only challenges the viewer’s perception of the landscape but also emphasizes the materiality of the artwork itself, making the process of creation as significant as the final image.

In Paesaggio Anemico, Schifano dissects the elements of sky, cloud, and earth, reducing them to their essential forms. The use of quick-drying enamel allows for spontaneous drips and strokes, adding a layer of immediacy and rawness to the composition. These works are less about depicting a scene and more about the act of seeing and interpreting the world through the artist’s eyes.

The Paesaggio Anemico series serves as a critical commentary on the act of representation itself. By deconstructing the landscape, Schifano invites the viewer to question the conventions of art and perception. These works are not mere reflections of nature but are meditations on the very process of seeing and understanding the world around us.

In essence, Paesaggio Anemico is a testament to Schifano’s innovative spirit and his ability to transform the familiar into the extraordinary, challenging us to reconsider the landscapes we thought we knew.