Lezione di pittura, 1995
GPO-0753
Painting Lesson
Pencil and collage on paper
Three framed parts 70 x 50 cm, overall dimensions 70 x 153 cm
Present whereabouts unknown
A male figure is seen sitting, immersed in thought, in a room drawn in perspective in the ensemble of three elements placed at short intervals. In the central element the triptych itself is repeated by a second drawing that is proportionally reduced, and that at the same time becomes the painting hanging on the wall at the back of the room.
A stand-in for the author, the figure seems to contemplate "his" painting – which in the game of combination of frames remains a trace against the light, a fleeting hypothesis – awaiting inspiration or revelation.
The "lesson" mentioned in the title is meant to allude, according to the artist, to the impossibility of theorizing anything on painting: "I never taught a lesson on painting, because I never taught an art that no one believes they can learn".1
This work is part of a group of homonymous works, made between 1994 and 1998 (both as "paintings" and as works on paper), whose common denominator is the seated figure, holding his head in his hands.
1 G. Paolini, Lezione di pittura (Lugo [Ravenna]: Exit Edizioni, 1995), p. 9.
Lionello Balestrieri, Beethoven, 1900, oil on canvas, 202 x 420 cm, Museo Revoltella, Trieste.
| 1996 | Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Giulio Paolini. L’Île enchantée, 6 January - 17 February. |
| 1998 | Viterbo, Ex Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Almadiani, Adieu, 27 June - 22 August, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 85 (erroneously dated “1998”), repr. p. 55, referred to in the text by D. Lancioni p. 55. |
| • | G. Paolini, Lezione di pittura (Lugo: Exit Edizioni, 1995), p. 9. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 753 p. 766, col. repr. |
