“It catches my eye before it appeals to my emotions”—the title of the work Entra nel mio occhio prima che nel sentimento 1965 (1964) sums up Schifano’s understanding of painting. For him, a picture is born from a visual impulse, not from emotion or narrative.
This work on paper belongs to a group of works in which the motif of the window is central. It is based on the narrow, tall window with a wrought-iron balustrade in Schifano’s apartment at Vicolo delle grotte 52, in Rome’s Trastevere district. This real detail becomes a symbolic threshold between inside and outside, between his studio and the world.
The Renaissance theorist Leon Battista Alberti described paintings as “open windows” through which viewers look at another reality. Schifano takes up this idea, whereby his windows open onto the indeterminate.
In Vicolo delle grotte 52, dall'interno presto la mattina (1966), Schifano depicts a larger section of the studio window opening onto nothingness. A ribbed acrylic glass hood that he places over the picture adds blurring to the motif. The asymmetrical, two-part format creates the impression that the artist has expanded the canvas to literally give the picture more space—a break from the conventional practice of traditional painting. The embedding of the title in the picture adds an additional linguistic layer that flows through the painting like a gentle breeze.
The window paintings are precursors to later works that are strongly influenced by mass media. Since Schifano rarely leaves his studio, the television becomes an additional “window to the world,” through which images reach him.
With Io sono infantile (1966) (English: I Am Childish), the artist formulates another poetic self-confession that encapsulates his artistic attitude. The work oscillates between a reference to the illustrations of Winnie-the-Pooh stories and an ironic nod to Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1912 painting, Nude Descending a Staircase.
The “childish” aspect of Schifano’s works is evident in his playful approach to the artistic process, in discovering and experimenting. “Perhaps childhood never ended for me,” says Schifano. “By childhood, I mean the ability to continue to view the world with a magical gaze.” He retains this open gaze throughout his life.
