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20 - LUCIO FONTANA (1899–1968) CRUCIFIXION. 1959. Glazed, painted terracotta with lustres and a third firing: white, black, purple, light blue, and gold. 43 x 30 x 8 cm. Signed. The work is accompanied by a certificate of registration from the Lucio Fontana Foundation, Milan, and is registered with the Foundation under no. 4419/1.We thank the Lucio Fontana Foundation for its kind cooperation. PROVENANCE: Private collection, Milan. BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. M. Barbero, Lucio Fontana. Catalog Raisonné of Sculptures and Ceramics. Volume I, Milan, Skira, 2022, p. 319, no. 59 FFC 8, ill. “I did, indeed, want to transcend the figure, to transcend drawing. But, in order to transcend them, I believed it was necessary first and foremost to have a thorough understanding of these traditional forms.”— Lucio Fontana, in Bruno Rossi, *Dialogue with Fontana, the Astronaut of Art*, 1963. Lucio Fontana’s relationship with the sacred theme stems precisely from this tension between knowledge of tradition and the need to transcend it. Beginning in the mid-1950s, with the “Depositions” series and the Stations of the Cross, the artist engaged with religious iconography through a profoundly modern conception of sculpture, in which material, gesture, color, and space become inseparable elements.Created in 1959, *Crucifixion* is fully part of this exploration. The traditional image of Christ undergoes a radical plastic transformation: the body, elongated and almost fused with the cross and the background, emerges from the material through reliefs, lacerations, and thickened areas. The light-colored surface is punctuated by subtle bursts of color and brief touches of gold, while the light, flowing over the folds and irregularities of the enamel, causes the forms to advance or recede depending on the viewer’s perspective.The religious drama is thus entrusted not to narrative, but to the tension of the body and the very physicality of the material. Clay and color work together to construct the form, transforming the ceramic into a true field of sculptural experimentation. It is precisely through this freedom of modeling that Fontana renews the traditional image of the Crucifixion, translating it into a living, vibrant material in which figure and space seem to be in a state of constant transformation.
LUCIO FONTANA (1899–1968) CRUCIFIXION. 1959. Glazed, painted terracotta with lustres and a third firing: white, black, purple, light blue, and gold. 43 x 30 x 8 cm. Signed. The work is accompanied by a certificate of registration from the Lucio Fontana Foundation, Milan, and is registered with the Foundation under no. 4419/1.We thank the Lucio Fontana Foundation for its kind cooperation. PROVENANCE: Private collection, Milan. BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. M. Barbero, Lucio Fontana. Catalog Raisonné of Sculptures and Ceramics. Volume I, Milan, Skira, 2022, p. 319, no. 59 FFC 8, ill. “I did, indeed, want to transcend the figure, to transcend drawing. But, in order to transcend them, I believed it was necessary first and foremost to have a thorough understanding of these traditional forms.”— Lucio Fontana, in Bruno Rossi, *Dialogue with Fontana, the Astronaut of Art*, 1963. Lucio Fontana’s relationship with the sacred theme stems precisely from this tension between knowledge of tradition and the need to transcend it. Beginning in the mid-1950s, with the “Depositions” series and the Stations of the Cross, the artist engaged with religious iconography through a profoundly modern conception of sculpture, in which material, gesture, color, and space become inseparable elements.Created in 1959, *Crucifixion* is fully part of this exploration. The traditional image of Christ undergoes a radical plastic transformation: the body, elongated and almost fused with the cross and the background, emerges from the material through reliefs, lacerations, and thickened areas. The light-colored surface is punctuated by subtle bursts of color and brief touches of gold, while the light, flowing over the folds and irregularities of the enamel, causes the forms to advance or recede depending on the viewer’s perspective.The religious drama is thus entrusted not to narrative, but to the tension of the body and the very physicality of the material. Clay and color work together to construct the form, transforming the ceramic into a true field of sculptural experimentation. It is precisely through this freedom of modeling that Fontana renews the traditional image of the Crucifixion, translating it into a living, vibrant material in which figure and space seem to be in a state of constant transformation.