Glossario, 1975

Glossario consists of twenty-five primed canvases arranged in five rows with intervals of the same size as the canvases; the canvases corresponding to the diagonals of this “painting” are all reversed. Each canvas features a collage; the canvases located around the edge of the work are characterized by motifs taken from previous works, while the middle ones feature the title of the work. Starting from the top left and continuing to the right, the canvases are characterized by the following interventions:
1. a colour photograph of a landscape, crumpled up inside a reversed canvas;
2. the four torn corners of a piece of aluminum foil, placed so that there’s a small margin from the edge of the canvas;
3. a reproduction of Disegno geometrico (GPO-0001) – applied to a slightly larger canvas – featuring lines in black and red ink that continue onto the canvas;
4. a blank sheet, slightly smaller than the canvas, fastened at the median perimeter points by four fragments of a dotted line torn out of a newspaper page;
5. twelve white pebbles, some of which stained with colour, assembled inside a reversed canvas;
6. six torn pieces of graph paper lined up on the canvas so as to simulate a horizon line;
7. the letter “G” torn from the name “Giulio” on the invitation to the 1969 solo show at the Galleria del Leone in Venice;
8. the letter “L” torn from the title of the work Le quattro parti del mondo (1969) on that same invitation;
9. the letter “O” torn from the print editon Una poesia (1967);
10. four photo-souvenirs taken during Paolini’s journey to Cagnes-sur-mer in 1969 (among which the one constituting La Guirlande [1970, GPO-0200]) arranged in random order on the canvas;
11. a reproduction of the artist’s hand as he produces Vedo (la decifrazione del mio campo visivo) (1969), held down on a slightly larger canvas, with the “decoding” points continuing on the canvas;
12. the letter “S” taken from the print edition Una poesia;
13. the letter “S” taken from the axonometric projection of Lo spazio (GPO-0120);
14. the letter “A” torn from the print edition of Una poesia;
15. a blank sheet, just slightly smaller than the canvas, filled with écriture automatique, covered in certain points with the torn fragments of another manuscript text;
16. a sheet of paper crumpled in a central position;
17. the letter “R” taken from the invitation to the Galleria del Leone in 1969, from the title of the work Relief planétaire (1969);
18. the letter “I” torn from the print edition The Encyclopædia Britannica (1971);
19. the letter “O” taken from the axonometric projection of Lo spazio (GPO-0120);
20. the shape of the artist’s hand intent upon drawing, cut out from red cardboard and placed so that the tip of the pencil touches that of the specular shape drawn in red pencil on the left side of the canvas;
21. four pencils in different colours, lined up along the inner sides of a reversed canvas;
22. a piece of unprimed cardboard, slightly smaller than the canvas, with an adhesive hook simulating the back of a painting;
23. the photograph taken by Anna Piva in which the artist holds an open book before him (cf. GPO-0241), applied to the middle of the canvas; the typescript inscription on the white cover reads: “Henry James / THE SENS OF THE PAST / New York / Charles Scribner’s Sons / 1917”;
24. the photograph of a ruler on a blank piece of paper pinned on a larger sheet of black paper, torn along the lower edge so as to reveal the canvas on which it is applied;
25. a rag stained with colour folded inside the reversed canvas.
A personal anthology brimming with internal cross-references and complementary correspondences, as well as a collection of iconographic clues and material or conceptual elements intrinsic to the painting, the work is a true and proper “glossary” of Paolini’s exploration of the idea of the painting.
In response to the twenty-five notes of commentary written by Maurizio Fagiolo for the catalogue published on the occasion of Paolini’s retrospective in Parma,1 the artist in turn formulated the same number of "items" corresponding to each of the twenty-five components of Glossario. Following the above listed order of the canvases the declarations were as follows:
1. “The identity of measure or proportion of the subject and of its image";
2. “The temporary boundaries of a virtual and changing space";
3. “A hidden model that reveals itself unexpectedly";
4. “The image as a transcription of itself";
5. “The colours: how many and which ones are they?";
6. “A sequence moves from one equal towards another equal";
7. “G-lossary as in G-iulio Paolini, or as in Buster Keaton, Constance Marie Charpentier2 etc.”;
8. “L, that is, Le quattro parti del mondo”;
9. “The centre of Una poesia is an ‘o’, an eye, a planet";
10. “An unstable figure that memory and (optical) illusions say is made up of many figures";
11. “To decipher is to invent the evidence";
12. “Or the unknowable”;
13. “The centre of the painting is the vanishing point of viewer (literally: escape = disappearance of the image)”;
14. “Writing isn't always automatic”;
15. “Nor is it always autograph if the identity is none other than the consequence of different juxtapositions";
16. “Form is a theory of conjecture about form";
17. “Relief planétaire, or of the obligation of geometry";
18. “The initial of the Encyclopædia (the beginning of the infinite)”;
19. “The last letter of Lo spazio (the end of ‘Glossario’)”;
20. “A point of contact signifies a lack of gravity";
21. “A line is visible when it is forced to be so";
22. “The viewpoint recognizes its limits, but it does not lend itself to hide those of others";
23. “Nothing remains, nothing becomes”;
24. “The art of mistaking the copy for the original";
25. ”The horizon is uncertain, mysterious but, if you look closely, transparent"3.

1 M. Fagiolo, “Glossario”, in Giulio Paolini (Parma: Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università di Parma, 1976), pp. 6-33.
2 Cf. GPO-0198 and GPO-0199.
3 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini, op. cit. (Parma: 1976), p. 34.