Still life

Arranged side by side and stacked in succession on a small table against a wall, kitchen utensils and natural products are displayed, expertly rendered in their clear and compact physicality.

The first of the two paintings features a copper cauldron, a square-based glass bottle partially filled with a clear liquid that could be wine or oil, two terracotta jugs of different sizes and glazes, and an unlit metal lantern. Along with a knife and a key, there are also four onions and two citrus fruits, while in the foreground, the severed head of a calf takes on a significant role in terms of space and expression.

In the second painting, the only element we find, besides the surface and the back wall, is the smaller jug, covered in brown glaze and with a small hemispherical lid. The rest of the objects are different: a few more tapered spring onions protrude from the table, the large jug is also brown glazed, the bottle has a different shape and, instead of a paper stopper, a halved orange covers the mouth. The knife appears silvery and is flanked by a spoon, just below it a lidded cup with floral decorations and an upside-down cup on its saucer, and finally a bronze mortar, a brass candle holder, and an apple. A large yellow pumpkin can be said to have replaced the calf's head.

Despite the simplicity of the composition, each presence is described through the perception of its own materials, supported by a chiaroscuro that, through the cones of shadow, outlines them in a rendering that can be described as tactile.

A description of the presences in the visual field, their consistency resembling geometric solids, would almost suffice to understand a kind of sublimation that reveals the artist's abstract vocation. We thus find a metaphysics of things in the most practical and humble space of the home, in the essentiality of a kitchen, within which tools, foods, and substances take on rhythm and punctuation, bringing the most diverse materials together in a harmonious direction.

This symphonic rendering is the fruit of a controlled and silent mastery with an unmistakable style, that of Fano-born Calo Magini, who combined a full-bodied brushstroke, reminiscent of the seventeenth-century, with a modern thought of rare clarity.