“Senza titolo” (1965) su sfondo di rovine classiche, 1972

Standing out at the centre of the perspectival view of a scenic landscape of "classical ruins" is the image of the 1965 work Senza titolo (two overlapping blank canvases, GPO-0073), painted as a trompe-l’œil. The two halves of the painting divided by the horizon line are distinguished chromatically: the upper half is painted in light blue-grey tempera, the lower half in shades of dark grey.
At first, the artist had considered setting Senza titolo against the backdrop of a view of the Venetian island of San Giorgio. He hired a painter-cum-decorator to paint a lagoon background, but, dissatisfied with the results, he repainted a field of ruins of his own invention.
The work is part of the group of large-scale works made for the solo show at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York in November 1972 (cf. GPO-0232, and from GPO-0234 to GPO-0240). The common denominator of these works is the proportional parameter of Disegno geometrico, the first painting made by the artist in 1960 (GPO-0001), as well as the median horizontal division that serves as a horizon line for the perspectival construction introduced in this very series of works. Perspective is used as a conceptual device to expand the spatio-temporal dimension of the painting, including countless possible works, the artist's own and those of others, whether pre-existing or hypothetical.