Antonio Squicciarini - The Friendly Star

Surrealist aesthetics emerged around the 1920s, encompassing all fields of artistic research. Specifically, in the visual arts, Surrealism sought to explore the human subconscious and translate it into artwork through a mechanical writing process based on dream analysis. Consequently, Surrealist artworks propose the representation of a dreamlike dimension, completely dissociated from reality. However, this representation often relies on a hyperrealistic formal rendering, precisely to paradoxically accentuate the illusory and ambiguous nature of the surreal. In the artistic production of Antonio Squicciarini of Bari, the dream dimension is represented by fantastical figures of knights in flight, clowns, and acrobats suspended in the sky. Compared to the Surrealist tradition, he rejects hyperrealist figuration, leaning instead toward an expressionism that brings him closer to Marc Chagall.

In this work, Antonio Squicciarini demonstrates his interest in and affinity with the work of Marc Chagall. This affinity is poetic, as, like the Belarusian artist, Squicciarini's paintings are characterized by atmospheres halfway between fairy tales and dreams, in visions populated by floating figures. Stylistically, Squicciarini also demonstrates a propensity, again like Chagall, to combine Surrealist aesthetics with a markedly Expressionist approach and Cubist decomposition. Indeed, the figures are constructed through a highly pictorial synthesis that reduces them to essential forms with a highly iconic value. Despite moving within a substantially two-dimensional space, their arrangement is complex, resulting from the superposition of planes and multiple viewpoints, as in abstract Cubism. Furthermore, Squicciarini's pictorial gesture is very strong, with bold strokes and a dense, rich application of color. The chromaticism, consistent with Expressionist forms, is bold, vibrant with playful tones.

Antonio Squicciarini is a painter originally from Bari, where he was born in 1957. His career developed primarily in Milan, where he organized numerous exhibitions in nightclubs, hence his nickname, the "painter of the night." Also in Milan, he founded, along with other colleagues, the "New Realism" group. His encounter with Marc Chagall was crucial to his development. In 1984, he created the set designs for Federico Fellini's film "Ginger and Fred."

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