My Landscapes at Bocconi

"I miei paesaggi" (My Landscapes): this is how Armando Fettolini entitled a recent exhibit. Those landscapes, like the ones that are part of the current exhibit in the Bocconi University Sala-Ristorante, are actually his own.

And not only in the obvious sense that he painted them. "His interpretation of the landscape does indeed seem unique, because what we actually see in his paintings is a visionary attempt to enclose a potentially unlimited extension in a restricted space" says Elena Pontiggia, art critical.

Or rather to provide a specific expression of something that is fleeting. As Pascal said, enclosing an esprit de finesse in an esprit de géométrie. Allow us to explain. In his most recent works, Fettolini has built wooden boards that have rigorous and spare geometric shapes.

Those boards draw on circles, squares, rectangles or a diminishing series of trapezoids, implying a sensitive and emotional blue, similar to what Cézanne called the color of separation.

This creates a gap between the stiffness of the medium and the lyricism of the color; between the finite, and sometimes small, size of the board and the vagueness of the colors that suggest night, the sea, the sky, the horizon and seem to have no limits. Of course, there are squares and circles in the piece as well.

These are very different geometries, however: light shadows that, precisely due to their levity, could extend indefinitely.

"Fettolini", says Pontiggia, "starts with a non-deformable structure and fills it with clippings, segments, transparent strips that seem to want to overcome the barriers of any frame.

The exhibition is organized by ISU Bocconi. Free entrance from March 11 to May 3, Monday-Saturday 9am – 12pm