Il nuovo come l’antico, 2021
GPE-0147
The New Akin to the Ancient
Lithograph
Fedrigoni Tintoretto
Plate 29.7 x 21 cm folded, 29.7 x 42 cm open
Signed on the recto of the second panel, bottom centre: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the verso of the first panel, bottom centre
30 in Arabic numerals from 1/30 to 30/30
20 in Roman numerals from I/XX to XX/XX
Edizioni l’Obliquo, Brescia
Grafica Sette Srl and Seven Media, Bagnolo Mella (Brescia)
The print is part of the series Altane, curated by Edizioni l’Obliquo, Brescia directed by Giorgio Bertelli. Comprised of a double lithograhic page including a text to the left and an image to the right, the series is based on the inspiration of the city of Venice. Paolini's project is the fourth in the series, which began with work by Pasquale di Palmo/Andrea Longega/Hervé Bordas/Vincenzo Cottinelli (2020), Guido Strazza (2021), and Carlo Della Corte/Giosetta Fioroni (2021).
Double-sided white card stock folder, with shaped inside pocket, closed format 30 x 21.5 cm; on the front board titles in red and black (title, publisher). Contains the print and five loose sheets: a half-title with the name and number of the series (”Altane 4”), a title-page, a short biographical note about the artist, the colophon, and a blank sheet.
Includes information regarding the printer, edition size, printing technique, type of paper, and place and date of printing (Brescia, 21 March 2021).
Note by the artist, L’ineguagliabile bellezza..., referring to the twofold Venetian homage implicit in the print edition, to the eighteenth-century painting Giandomenico Tiepolo, Il Mondo Nuovo, and to the ancient city of Venice, respectively. Text impressed in autograph calligraphy, facing the image making up the edition.
The plate with two sides, spread open, is characterized by a note in the author's handwriting and an image. The writing, on the left side, celebrates "the unparalleled beauty" of Il Mondo nuovo (1791), painted by Giandomenico Tiepolo in Venice, and at the same time the "equally unparalleled" beauty of the city of Venice that "evokes the beauty of the ancient world". The image on the right side of the work features in other terms the contrast between "ancient" and "new". At the top, the reproduction of Tiepolo's Il Mondo nuovo shows a crowd of curiosity-seekers, viewed from behind, waiting to access a sort of magic lantern that hosts a projection of fanciful images of exotic places. Below, a crowd of young people, arms raised, viewed from the front, participate in an assembly (the torn fragments scattered across the image are from the reproduction of the painting by Tiepolo). In both reproductions – in yesterday's the same as today's world – the crowd's attention is turned towards something that remains beyond our sight: the object of the vision is off-stage, the scene is occupied by the expectant audience.
The original collage on which the print is based is documented in the online Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper at number GPC-2018.
Giandomenico Tiepolo, Il Mondo Nuovo, 1791, detached fresco, 205 x 525 cm, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice.
| • | G. Paolini, L’ineguagliabile bellezza..., note included with the print edition. |
| • | Giulio Paolini per le Edizioni l’Obliquo (1986-2021) (Brescia: Edizioni l’Obliquo, 2021), col. repr. no. 4 (edition 1/30). |
