(Homs, Libya 1934–1998 Rome)
‘Per partito preso (Paesaggio italiano)’, 1989, triptych, titled, signed, dated Schifano 89 on the reverse, lacquer, acrylic and sand on canvas, overall dimensions 300 x 450 cm, (300 x 150, 150 x 300, 150 x 300 cm), framed, (AR)

Photo certificate:
Fondazione MS, Rome, 20 June 2011, archive no. 89/153
Archivio Mario Schifano, Rome, 18 October 2012, archive no. 02318121012

Provenance:
Partito Repubblicano Italiano, Rome (donated by the artist in 1989)
European Private Collection

Literature:
Schifano: una tela gigante presso la direzione, in Adnkronos, 27 January 1998; Mario Schifano. A) II Opere su tela 1983–1990/97, Università degli Studi di Genova, 2007, p. 322, no. 89/153 with ill.

...And finally the 1980s arrived. In a period in which mass communication pushed towards a ‘dematerialised’ image, painting came back hardened. Thanks precisely to his devotion to this artistic form that he never abandoned, Mario Schifano became the absolute protagonist of his time.
His paintings from those years – especially concise and communicative – are characterised by freshness and renewed mirth, tenderness and passion, all of which are probably linked to a key event in the artist’s life: the birth of his son in 1985. From this moment onwards, Schifano seems to see nature with different eyes, he seems to marvel at it constantly and to attempt to capture by means of colour every manifestation of a world never seen before. He paints with a positive and productive anxiety that triggers a spasmodic desire to acquire everything that life shows him without missing anything.
Schifano emerges with renewed painterly élan, in a triumph of creativity, light and colour, concentrating on nature: landscapes, flowers, meadows and waves are reproduced on his canvases through a gesturality laden with memories, impulses and sensations.
All of these features are detectable in the painting Per Partito preso – Paesaggio Italiano, which the artist donated to the Italian Republican Party as a gift on the occasion of its Rimini Congress in 1989.
Just like the 1968 series Compagni Compagni, in this work, too, although with more moderation, Schifano’s art touches on contemporary political events and refers to the history of political parties (see the ivy leaf – symbol of the party – repeated several times within the composition).
This piece, with its markedly Italian colours further stressed by the tricolour with inverted stripes in the upper left section, appears as a triumph of pastose, vibrant colours, the richness of which is reminiscent of Van Gogh.
Schifano’s hand is rapid yet elegant, his sign laden with energy, and the work is not shorn of references to his region of origin, in this case the use of sand. From 1978 until 1989 he fought a duel, hand-to-hand combat of increasing intensity. More and more colour, increasingly thick layers on his paintings. There are works that look almost impressionistic, where light is rendered by means of thousands of brush strokes and in which he gives free rein to the sumptuousness that painting can offer. Monica De Bei