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Earth Impressions.

Traces of Memory in Paolo Staccioli’s Ceramic Art

by Elisa Gradi

A forest teeming with knights collides with a jumble of battle with reality’s discord and lies, in the tormented
armour, lances and banners, heralds blowing trumpets memory of lost seasons.
and drapery. A merry-go-round of indomitable horses, Before Paolo Staccioli began his artistic life, a diachronic
prodded on by biting spurs, wildly competes for the revisiting of his double childhood, (that is, both a
foreground of the scene, bringing forward into battle biographical and familial one, as well as one comprised
tense and excited warriors dressed in brilliant trappings. of the Florentine artistic tradition,) and a return to a
Within the sublime architecture of the themes, lights dreamlike and primordial dimension, in which his
and volumes, a steed gallantly rears up, freeing itself figurative symbols are continually re-presented, clearly
from the constraints of the rider, and becomes the forge the supporting structure that will indelibly mark
focal center, the perspective point and zenith of the his work.
representation. This is the Battle of Saint Roman, painted The evidence of this is visible even in his first works,
by Paolo Uccello, in 1456, to celebrate the victory by the which date from the beginning of the 1970’s. Overcome
Florentine troops, lead by Bernardino della Ciarda, over by nostalgic epiphanies, Staccioli pours his caprices on
the Sienese militia on June 1st, 1432. It demonstrated to his canvases in the same form as they occurred in
a miraculous compositional ability rivalling the modern his imagination: irrational, playful, chaotic jumbles of
and expressive qualities of the historic 1900’s avant- merry-go-rounds of toy horses, floating in the air together
gardes. It is thus capable of influencing a contemporary with flying “putti” and trumpet players, jugglers, dolls
artist’s imagery because it sparks a continual questing of and “pucinellas”. They all move in dance steps between
how a work of art is constructed. It points to precisely walls of horses, floating in the windy vastness, flooding
the place where the balance between aesthetic pleasure, the canvas with timeless stories, guided by the painter’s
conceptual elaboration and the representation of the both melancholy and burlesque sentiments.
unreal come together. It is a story telling where a He creates a world that seems animated only by swirling
chronicled event gives itself up audaciously to a poetic pinwheels of fantastical characters and horses. It is a
rendition, vibrating with burning complexity and world where perspective doesn’t exist nor where any
sensual colour. compositional structure can, in any way, influence the
Even before he arrived at his artistic maturity, Paolo unfettered expansion of his inexhaustible inventiveness.
Staccioli, in contemplating the Battle of Saint Roman, It is a formal universe that guarantees him the illusion
derived, perhaps, support from an imaginative sphere of a bond with a past, constructed and reconstructed in a
that could offer him a way to develop his expressive web of remembrances, into which the artist’s memories
energy and budding potential. The exalted figure of the creep. This world, woven from his parade of associations,
horse that throws its rider, presented in schematic form evocations, and dreams, is pushed to the point where we
and reduced to pure volume, is associated with the idea are presented with a truly original construction.
of an image that is already part his the visual patrimony. The images follow one another immediately and result
And, a photo of the father-child, who wanted his portrait from one another as they are created. It is as if there
painted with his favorite toy, a wooden horse fixed on a were no premeditation. They submit themselves to a
frame with wheels, grants substance to that image. The continual metamorphosis of form and movement, loaded
significance of the creative act is condensed in the horse. with a persuasive and captivating symbolic component.
The artist recognizes the image; it is familiar to him, and In his first works as a painter, Staccioli often practices
it offers hospitality to his nomadic imagery. It provides his exceptional ability to transform Paolo Uccello’s
a unique place where imagination can win the unfair masterpiece into a fairytale like interpretation, thus

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