Fausto Melotti (1901-1986)

Executed in 1959 as part of his teatrini (puppet theatre) series, I Gessetti is an early example of Fausto Melotti’s figurative terracotta works. I Gessetti is a diorama divided into two distinct levels, and the architecture evokes Piet Mondrian’s neo-plastic compositions. On each ‘floor’, a softly modelled figure sits sideways, knees bent, calmly lost in thought. Warmth emanates from the cloudy grey. In the lower level, Melotti has placed a small table and covered it with the titular chalks which provide the only colour in an otherwise serenely monochromatic tableau, a meditation in terracotta.

In the aftermath of World War II, Melotti turned to ceramics explaining, ‘I must confess that the war has caused me great inner pain and sickness. One cannot make abstract art, one cannot even think about it when the soul is full not of desperation, but of figures of desperation’ (F. Melotti quoted in S. Whitfield, Fausto Melotti: sculptures and works on paper from 1955 to 1983, exh. cat., London, 2006, n.p.). His series of teatrini, as such, serve as setting for his experiments in figuration. Spare in decoration, Melotti’s teatrini present open-ended and accommodating worlds where new narratives can take shape and unfold emphasized by the inclusion of chalk; critic Michela Moro describes them as ‘safe spaces…both lighthearted and profound’ (M. Moro, ‘Fausto Melotti and Thea Djordjadze: La Triennale de Milano,’ Artforum, Summer 2017). The settings are intimate, and they privilege the minor and the personal reminiscent of the Surrealist assemblages of Joseph Cornell whose captivating tableaux transformed the everyday. Like Cornell’s shadowboxes, Melotti’s teatrini are sites for mysterious dreaming and a reconfiguration of reality. I Gessetti is a reach towards peace in the face of previous traumas; the pursuit of an idealized harmony through a domestic calm.