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Lot Essay
One of Salvatore Scarpitta's early torn and lacerated canvas works, Croce rota bendata represents the artist's break away from the claustrophobic constraints of the traditional picture plane to explore the expressive qualities of painting's raw materials. Scarpitta's work was influenced by his time on both sides of the Atlantic. Although brought up in the United States, Scarpitta followed in his father's footsteps and studied art Italy, and he spent over a decade living in Rome after the Second World War. Following his service with the U.S. Navy, Scarpitta returned to Rome and was reunited with artist friends who had been separated by years of conflict. Despite the war-time devastation found in Italy, Scarapitta encountered an overwhelming spirit of freedom and renewal that he sought to express in his art: 'there was an atmosphere of extraordinary energy, we were survivors, and the happiness and desire to live were so great that we created a new art' (S. Scarpitta cited in L. Sansone, Salvatore Scarpitta catalogue raisonne, Milan, 2005, p. 60).
In his quest for this new means of expression Scarpitta began shredding existing paintings and wrapping them to the stretcher frame in an iconoclastic action that managed to preface the architectonic properties of Minimalism and introduce an arcane, Joseph Beuys-like interest in healing and existence. Like Burri's stitched sacking, the strips of ragged canvas, introduced a tactile, sculptural element to his art and deliberately evokes a profound curative power: 'I started ripping up the oil paintings, the canvas that had become an utter enemy for me. It was a necessity connected with my human experience; the war had changed me, the fear and desire for vendetta, I needed to run the risk of leaving fingerprints. I wanted to come into contact with the hidden, most difficult nature of things. Otherwise I would never have been cured of the war' (S. Scarpitta cited in Ibid, p. 65). The title of Croce rota bendata, (Bandaged Broken Cross), not only implies the importance Scarpitta placed in the physical properties of the work, with its heavily bound frame and crossbar, but also the suggestion of a spiritual process of recovery after great sacrifice. The taught, lacerated fabric, a cross between swaddling clothes and mort dress, creates both a sense of concealment implying the treatment of a wound and the protection of a precious object. Having served in an official capacity as a 'Monuments Man' during the war, overseeing the restitution and protection of art objects and monuments stolen and damaged in the course of the conflict, Scarpitta's interest in the shattered yet enduring vestiges of culture and heritage breathes through Croce rota bendata, which has the air of an archaeological object, a vestige of a lost and forgotten civilisation. As with Lucio Fontana's slashed paintings, the seemingly destructive act of shredding canvas conveys a greater conceptual meaning that indicates a positive affirmation of existence. In this way, Croce rota bendata is filled with a strange optimism, displaying Scarpitta's concern with the survival of thought, of art and of beauty.
In his quest for this new means of expression Scarpitta began shredding existing paintings and wrapping them to the stretcher frame in an iconoclastic action that managed to preface the architectonic properties of Minimalism and introduce an arcane, Joseph Beuys-like interest in healing and existence. Like Burri's stitched sacking, the strips of ragged canvas, introduced a tactile, sculptural element to his art and deliberately evokes a profound curative power: 'I started ripping up the oil paintings, the canvas that had become an utter enemy for me. It was a necessity connected with my human experience; the war had changed me, the fear and desire for vendetta, I needed to run the risk of leaving fingerprints. I wanted to come into contact with the hidden, most difficult nature of things. Otherwise I would never have been cured of the war' (S. Scarpitta cited in Ibid, p. 65). The title of Croce rota bendata, (Bandaged Broken Cross), not only implies the importance Scarpitta placed in the physical properties of the work, with its heavily bound frame and crossbar, but also the suggestion of a spiritual process of recovery after great sacrifice. The taught, lacerated fabric, a cross between swaddling clothes and mort dress, creates both a sense of concealment implying the treatment of a wound and the protection of a precious object. Having served in an official capacity as a 'Monuments Man' during the war, overseeing the restitution and protection of art objects and monuments stolen and damaged in the course of the conflict, Scarpitta's interest in the shattered yet enduring vestiges of culture and heritage breathes through Croce rota bendata, which has the air of an archaeological object, a vestige of a lost and forgotten civilisation. As with Lucio Fontana's slashed paintings, the seemingly destructive act of shredding canvas conveys a greater conceptual meaning that indicates a positive affirmation of existence. In this way, Croce rota bendata is filled with a strange optimism, displaying Scarpitta's concern with the survival of thought, of art and of beauty.