Page 19 - PAOLO STACCIOLI

While analyzing Paolo Staccioli’s vast body of work, columns scaled by winged “putti”, plinths conquered by
from the middle of the 1990’s to today, we can list horses, tympanum and architraves in relief that float in
a multitude of figures, themes, and compositional the spaces of terracotta plaques, populating a sudden
solutions. In each of his works, whether they are acropolis, are born. He is successful because of his, by
vessels or sculpture, we are confronted with the evident now well know, lyrical style, that allows him to easily
casualness of his ability to cite classical themes as well convert the chaotic agitation of the bizarre mosaic
as modern ones, and to overlay passages from fantastical pieces of little terracotta sculptures into a harmonious
stories and themes taken from his every day life. The rhythm. What counts, though, is his ability to play
making of this volume, thus, has been quite complex with fragmentation and irony, which reinforces an
in its attempt to present a panoramic and appropriately unforeseeable expressive joy, that jumps and dances
critical view of his work. form one plane to another across the relief.
We have, therefore, decided to compile a concise So, in his first sculptures of horses and warriors, we can
summary of the central phases of Paolo Staccioli’s see his autonomous attempt to open himself up to the
formative development, starting from his beginnings as road toward new standards of representation, sustained
a painter and them moving on to his clay production by his imagination and understanding of the material’s
(which he continued to regard, in fact, as a proving strengths. As we have seen, the horse personifies, in
ground for the pictorial method). But, it is worthwhile Staccioli’s imagination, a bond with history, both his
here to concentrate on the transitional phase of his plastic familial history and the iconographic tradition begun by
development. It is this moment, which we consider Paolo Uccello’s pictorial narratives. The translation in to
most pertinent to our research, when Staccioli achieves a plastic medium faithfully maintains the iconography
the maximum integration and conceptual clarity in that he experimented with in painting. The prototypes
joining ceramic culture and his endeavors in sculpture. are repeated and reveal continuity, and a well considered
And, finally, the osmosis between the two surfaces, the
sculptural and the pictorial, is brought successfully to
fruition. Staccioli seems to question himself regarding
the point of juncture between the material and its
chromatic cover, which are fused, reveal themselves
and emerge through his ability to transform.
Among his first attempts at sculpture, we can recognize
the small figures of the “pucinellas”, which come out
of his painting. They then appear huddled on the
necks of the vases. And, we see the “putti” attempting
to climb the slippery surfaces of the plinths. And also,
the medieval-like winged towers decorated with stripes
that recall the marble facades of the Romanesque Tuscan
churches, that are decorated with alternating stripes of
white Carrara marble and green serpentine marble from
Prato. Staccioli often uses this decorative element, even
for the surfaces of vases and sculptures.
By the same account, Staccioli’s bas- reliefs prove to be
interesting experiments, which refer to and incorporate
the mythological imagery of the standard archetypal
forms that define a repertoire of Mediterranean
architecture and sculpture. But, the attention that
Staccioli pays to the classical world brings with it the
need for a new idea, an idea that couldn’t be omitted
or left inaccessible. He had to confront his captivating
iconographic repertoire and let bloom, as it were, a
fantastical and narrative infrastructure. So, the tuscanate Ceramica invetriata, 997

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