UNDER AND OVERGROUND

Vincenzo Scolamiero at the Etruscan Museum

Under and Overground

Francesca Bottari

From July 8, 2023, the National Etruscan Museum of Rocca Albornoz hosts a solo exhibition of Vincenzo Scolamiero, an accomplished Roman artist with an extensive background of art exhibitions both in Italy and abroad. Scolamiero is Professor of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.

In the exhibition two distinct energy fields converge. For the first time, Rocca Albornoz has made the
bold decision to open the doors to its esteemed archaeological collection in order to house an exhibition of contemporary art. Scolamiero’s lifelong dedication to experimental art can be seen, embracing a variety of figurative mediums. Here, the artist serves up tangible and intangible elements from an ancient world.

Vincenzo Scolamiero’s exhibition is not strictly anthological, but rather a gradual exploration of decades of the artist’s personal evolution. This journey back in time interacts with where his art is on display, providing a chance to view his figurative pieces from a fresh angle. A careful selection of pieces from the museum’s collection respects and complements the artist’s work, echoing the balance required for such a combination.

The four sections of the exhibition showcase around thirty pieces of art, including canvases large and small, papers, and a selection of timber and stone fragments, as always a poetic inspiration for Scolamiero.

In the entrance hall, expansive works portray forms seemingly engaged in a struggle with the belly of the earth, only to re-emerge in titanic and poignant form.

Dialogue with past worlds beneath us is a major part of archaeological science. This resonates deeply within the research Scolamiero has been following for years. While in the past it was poetry and music that inspired and ignited his creativity, now it is upturned soil and ruptured stone, stirred by nature’s innate strength.
This seems to invoke the primordial mystery of the Earth, held close and concealed in her womb. From this primal force, precious remnants of a distant world are transformed into brushstrokes of silver and gold,
a flicker of light dancing across metal, or the dark and reddish opacities of Etruscan bucchero and clay.

Over expansive canvases, the earth seems to crack apart, leaving the air free to swirl into its depths, drawing foliage and roots behind. This expression
of nature doing as nature will, natura naturans, finds solace beneath the artist’s age-old practice of drawing an ethereal veil over the fringes of his work – a recurring motif and rational element that restrains the creative and primordial energies at play. Elsewhere, Scolamiero delves deeper into his examination of planes, smoothing surfaces down into a metallic sheen, harvesting from his own personal exploration
of pigments. It is as if some potent unseen force from below is corrupting their inherent smoothness, causing surfaces to ripple, fold, and split apart. Even metal barricades succumb to the power of nature, yielding to a deluge of twisted branches, moss, shimmering spiders’ webs, and tree fibres, reaching upwards in their search for light. A sense of calm is restored in

the second room, with large sky coloured canvases, open and airy, but rooted in sturdy foundations. Stone masses and shiny surfaces bask in the sunlight, with delicate ash-coloured decorations on the white sheets. But the vibrant blue does not exude weightlessness, instead the solid nature of the stone transforms it into something tangible and corporeal.

In the last two sections, the artist shifts from

a substantially two-tone approach to an explicit exploration of, and comparison with, the Etruscan world, a source of newfound inspiration. Recurrent forms are lightened, in the end resembling intricate Byzantine tracery, leaving soft and precious colours to permeate the compositions.

Over wide formats, the Earth leaves signs of its passing on the moss, moisture, and mineral-rich waters that add depth to its geological essence. Ancient clay comes back to life in a pictorial concoction. Adorned with a velvety layer of moss, glances of gold dance across the surface, resembling glistening jewels. There are shades of green reminiscent of ancient bronzes, while subtle pinkish hues evoke the delicate clay of polished vases, gracing the composition. The white veils are cluttered with intricate decorations and symbolic motifs. Bronze gleams like gold, and sinuous black filaments, reminiscent of the slip on a glazed vase, ripple across the surfaces, forming shapes that blossom and meander.

To conclude, a copious nest emerges, a prominent motif in Scolamiero’s compositions. Its elliptical design stretches, evolving into the shape of a sarcophagus, carved into the earth itself.

The carefully chosen archaeological items on display, sealed within their glass display cases, engage in a dialogue with the artist’s work along with the small bites of nature he has chosen to gather up. In the halls each figurative suggestion, presented with passion, demands gradual and thoughtful digestion. Inside those cases lies a microcosm where past and present seamlessly intertwine. Within this realm, an exchange between distant cultures can be experienced, free of barriers, opening uncharted territories to explore and compare.

Upstairs and downstairs, backstage pass to an exhibition

There’s more to an exhibition than just choosing what to put on display, where to put it, and sorting the lighting. For a long time now we’ve been talking with Scolamiero about how, no matter how impressive an exhibition of his may be, the energy that lies behind his works doesn’t always fully come across. His creativity
is fuelled by a profound understanding of both the macro and microscopic aspects of life. We came up with a setting that not only helps give voice to this complexity, but also contributes to an interpretation
of the artist’s works, unveiling their origins, and under whose aesthetic wing they were born: a poetic catalyst drawn from nature. Put simply, there’s no history of art lesson going on here, just the artist’s interpretation
of a series of reference points, the pieces on display, breathing life into them, and helping them to communicate, both with us and amongst themselves.

Scolamiero’s unique creative process doesn’t confine itself to the conception, choice of media
and execution of a work. It possesses a spontaneous quality; the complex ritual that follows is an integral part of the piece, the stages in its creation have already been preconceived. The first is born of hand crafted traditions, with the selection and assemblage of his tools: the wood and bristles for his paintbrushes; the linen and frames for the supports; and dummy runs with powders and binding elements, including the choice of which bowls to mix them in, or, if necessary, their being forged from scratch. As the artist faces
up to the challenge of the immense surface before him, his athletic prowess comes into play. Stood
firmly on two feet, his uncluttered mind guides broad, solid, and controlled gestures with his brush. In this realm, his imagination breathes new life into the

array of materials that he has surrounded himself
with: branches, nests, twigs, clods of earth, stones, berries, fossils, and blooming acanthus, frozen forever in resin. These are elements that come together in fresh, absolute forms within primordial spaces – rocky landscapes where gusts of air carry vapours and dense clouds, and transparent, shredding veils cling to the rocky surface below, dampening its movement.

The essence of what can be born of nature evolves from the very bristles of the artist’s brushes. This is
an arduous figurative journey that carries him from
the alpha to the omega of his preparatory ritual. Scolamiero is never too sure where his painting will take him, it’s the canvas itself that guides his adept hands. In chorus together, the artist’s different arrangements, whether as craftsman, athlete, alchemist or painter, unexpectedly unite, in harmony with each other. Along this rite of passage, world wizened and yet with a childlike eye, other forms of creative energy emerge. Poetry and music, perennially nurturing the artist’s mind, accompany his every move.

This time, something’s changed, or, perhaps this
is just yet another addition to Scolamiero’s vibrant imaginative world. Close contact with the material culture of the Etruscans and the Greeks of the Magna Graecia made him realise that his work could find
a home in an archaeological context, amongst the pieces on display in a museum. The idea of his pieces lying alongside objects from a past life, retrieved from the soil, has turned his previously tried and tested creative process on its head, instilling it with
a hither before unseen chromatic and formal vitality. New colours and compositions have emerged; the pinkish hue of ancient clay beckoning the dark green of bronze, while the deep brown of Bucchero pottery made the artist’s beloved blacks ever the more opaque and intense, creating new spaces for a mutual and joyous dialogue.

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The impact of this enrichment is clear to be seen: from preliminary sketches on minimal surfaces, moving through multicoloured gouache paintings, and on to the exquisite concertina leporelli and confidently expressive works on paper and tablets. These freshly discovered tones of colour diffuse and intermingle with the gold and silver elements of recent experiments, blending with woven white pigment, intertwined with linear and branched textures.

It would be hard to deny that such a transformation has taken place. How to display the immensely rich realm of expressive design in these works? Alongside Scolamiero’s artistic creativity, which, in a multitude
of ways, breathes life into nature itself, an invaluable selection of Etruscan and Magna Graecia materials has been introduced. Thanks go to the Directorate General of Latium’s museums, in the shape of Stefano Petrocchi, and the museum’s director, Sara De Angelis. Safely behind the splendid showcases of Rocca Albornoz, an outstanding selection of pieces from the Cima Pesciotti collection, with the museum since the 1970s, has been seamlessly mixed in with what the artist has to offer.

Our tentative grafting process has born an unexpected fruit, even if it was already known that the guiding spirit behind this daring amalgamation had always been Nature herself. The ingredients involved – painted canvases, boards, and paper drawings, mixed with a myriad of elements from the natural world, and ancient artefacts such as amphorae, kylix, kraters, urns and bronze vessels – are all fruit of the same womb: Mother Nature that gives birth to and presides over all. The astonishing outcome is a symphony of shapes and hues, swiftly establishing a thematic nucleus for each new setting.

In the central chamber, the windows have been adorned with painted papers, winding branches, and crystallised resins, juxtaposed with more imposing works, adorned with clumps and expanses of earth,

upon which delicate veils find respite. Within each crystalline wunderkammer, an archaeological piece claims its rightful place. An opulent, mid-sixth century BCE, black figure Attic amphora, embellished with deities, roosters, and sirens, shares space with Scolamiero’s own polychromatic papers and tablets crafted especially for this exhibition, alongside resin structures that capture the vibrant stillness of floral growth.

A vertical diptych stands next to the first display case. While an animated breeze may have fractured the moist and moss-covered terrain of the surface of Scolamiero’s work, it’s the serenity of nature that envelops the museum piece. Here an Etruscan amphora from the
end of the 6th century BCE holds court; the group of dolphins that decorate it frolic in the waves. The small and substantial sketches that accompany it radiate with fine metallic particles and pigments, their pinkish hues reminiscent of the gentle shades of unfired clay, the greens echoing the bronze lamina of the seventh century BCE Etruscan boat shaped vessel on the middle shelf.

There are other, recent works by the artist on the opposite wall. Rippling shiny surfaces, reminiscent of copper sheeting, are interrupted by the resurgence
of the earth, intertwining, branching out in bloom,
all encased in a tumultuous and trembling depiction
of nature. A dignified calm is restored by the archaeological pieces on display: a black Attic kylix from the 5th century BCE sits rich in its red hues. In the centre of the cup a young wanderer stands in contemplation, leaning upon his staff. The golden black interplay is evoked by both Scolamiero’s sketches and the clumps of Siena earth collected from the fields – the artist too,

a wanderer. The multiple hues of brown, put together to shape space and form is a recurrent theme in the artist’s oeuvre. Here it appears to echo the intense black of the bucchero of the late seventh century BCE Veio chalice. The cup is held aloft by young girls and ribbons

adorned with animals. On the top shelf, an arid and twisted branch from the artist’s studio seems to mirror itself, and discovers an idealised form in, the table behind, part of a quadriptych against a black backdrop. The numerous compartments of this uninterrupted frieze hark back to ancient or Renaissance grotesque decorations.

In the three expansive artworks at the back of the room, gentler hues, ranging from ochre to orange, emerge from the earth’s depths. Next to them, in the
last display case, these same shades go from strength
to strength on the tablet placed there, framed within a branch withered by the wind and time itself. The vivid orange of the minimalist brush strokes is picked out by the white on the leaves. The mid-sixth century BCE Attic amphora dominates the panorama. The black silhouette of the splendid horse’s head that adorns it, its curly mane gracefully descending along its back, boldly stands out against the mild clay tone of the backdrop.

The next gallery is devoted to a lifelong passion of Scolamiero’s, Music. These works were created three years ago, in honour of the composer Luigi Nono. Here, instead of emerging from the shaken ground, the forms that emerge dance through the air, creating spaces that open up, outwards, towards a clear, compacted sky. This luminous expanse serves as a canvas for the white sheets that intersect with earthy surfaces, floral garlands, and

a glimmering glow and shine of gold. Peering through the display case that separates the second and third galleries, a glimpse of gold can be caught. This is a medium in which Scolamiero both experiments and has made his own. A lengthy concertina leporello unfolds, displaying its polychrome facets. All the colours in the artworks on the walls communicate with each other, conjuring up images of pools of water, moist woodland, glimpses of the sky, and precious metals.

In the third gallery, known as the “Sala della Terra”, or “Room of the Earth”, Scolamiero’s relationship with

the museum, and the ancient pieces it is home to, intensifies and is clearer to the eye. While the rest of the exhibition ably encapsulates his figurative poetics and vast technical expertise, the forms and colours

of his new works on display, here, are clear evidence of the enduring and ever-blooming richness of his creative prowess. What’s on display acts as a catalyst, magnifying every conceivable suggestion. Within
this room, there are three large canvases and four concertina leporello works housed in custom made plexiglass cases. The captivating sight is a play of shadows and reflections cast by the transparent cases, endowing the entire space with the essence of a work of art in its own right.

At the centre of the exhibition, both physically
and metaphysically, every dramatic element In both
the paintings and sketches in this gallery seems to dissolve. Perhaps it’s the tender green shoots of
spring contrasting with the darkened foliage of the undergrowth, or the delicate pinkish and orange hues of the finest clay, that fill the recurrent forms with a sense of weightlessness and fluidity, be they clumps
of earth, stones, foliage, or sheets draped over the boundary plane. The warm tones exude an airiness, the greens diffusing the scent of the natural world. Even the ancient pieces on display are a part of this refreshing cycle. An Etruscan black figure 6th century BCE krater, adorned with pinkish clay columns, is home to dancing figures and deer playfully turning on their bellies. The green hue of an Etruscan 7th century BCE biconical bronze foil vase seems to merge with the tablets and papers that frame it. Even gold, in its abundance here, takes on a luminous and transparent quality, perceptible both in the smaller sketches in the display case and in the concertinas adorning the walls.

Tradition and innovation harmoniously merge in Scolamiero’s latest frame of research. A substantial portion of his creative output, particularly in the field

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of music, is dedicated to bichromatic synthesis. Within this sphere, he exercises a meticulous control over
form and space, resulting in a composition that is both precise and rational. Occasionally, the rigidity behind this approach is disrupted by the introduction of earthy tones and warm hues. This can be seen in the expansive canvas on the far wall. A cascade of sprawling, weighty blossom closes off the right side of the geometric arrangement. This over spilling, downward movement imbues the canvas with a sense of motion, while suffusing it with palpable warmth.

A recurrent motif in the artist’s work, and dear him, appears on the opposite wall. A nest swirls outwards
in whirling strokes of ochre, seeming to expand,
almost opening up into a tomblike vortex cut into the tuffaceous rock. In the display case next to it a variety of browns and blacks bridge the gap between past and present. Scolamiero breathes life into his creations, paintings and sketches, with a palette of earthy and gilded hues. Small, irregular gilded leaves, twigs, and clumps of earth evoke a microcosm that is both natural and poetic.

On the centre shelf, a splendid 4th century BCE black varnish amphora sits jarringly but happily beside a sizable sketch. The amphora’s dark, polished surface and handled neck is intricately decorated with golden red geometric motifs that gleam against its intense backdrop. Scolamiero’s artistic sketch involves masses that emerge from the surrounding darkness, lit up by ochre and gold hues. These elements find their place and space on the canvas, pushing them forward in their radiant vibrancy.

The juxtaposition of these two works, so far apart in time, is emblematic of the guiding theme that threads its way through all of the pieces on display. It has had
a profound impact on those of us who, something by chance, have brought this exhibition to life. Its impact has left us with the courage to carry on along this artistic

path, in spite of the uncertainties and reservations that may previously have cast certain doubts. This piece
by Scolamiero’s dates back to 2014 and is an integral part of his personal exhibition Senza permesso in un campo (Unsanctioned in a Field). Here, the artist, much like a wanderer, saw himself tramping across an open expanse of clumps of earth, stumbling upon enigmatic forms and outcrops – vestiges of a bygone era and custodians of an almost forgotten past. To bring these apparitions to life, here and yet not here, he used safflower oil, a mild solvent that diffused his colours into radiant transparencies. Chance would have it that these same transparencies can be seen mirrored in the gilt brushed embellishments illuminating the ancient amphora’s black slip.

These were the nascent stages of Vincenzo Scolamiero’s unconscious dialogue with history, one that has evolved into a tangible and meaningful life through this unpredicted and unpredictable exhibition.