SERPIERI

PAOLO SERPIERI DRUUNA Aphrodisia (T.6), Bagheera 1997 Original plate no. 43. Signed. India ink and colored inks on paper 25.4 × 36.4 cm (10 × 14.33 in.) In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche identified the two great antinomian forces of art: the Dionysian force that dissolves man's spirit in overflow and pleasure on the one hand, and the reconstructive, ordered, cerebral power of the Apollonian force on the other. If we were to apply this to comics, we could say that Moebius, Manara or even Crepax belong to the Apollonian trend, while Serpieri or Pichard embody the Dionysian side. When he created Morbus Gravis in 1985 with his character Druuna, Serpieri's eroticism became flesh, truly flesh. With its generous, rubescent side, where sexuality is a virtue fully embraced, even to the point of perversity, Druuna is a ferment of subversion against all the moralisms and prejudices, particularly religious, that encircle and bind society. This board is a cry of revolt.