Costantino Spada - Old Sardinian

Portraiture is one of the most widespread artistic expressions, especially in painting, but also in sculpture, throughout the ages. Portraiture is, first and foremost, a description of the subject depicted, an attempt to faithfully and naturally capture their physiognomy and individual characteristics. With the progressive evolution of artistic research, the physiognomic description of the subject has also been accompanied by a psychological one. Therefore, over the centuries, portraiture has also become a means of introspective investigation of the subject, their character, and their state of mind. The processes of abstraction brought about by contemporary art have contributed to this type of investigation. Even in the interpretation of the portrait genre, Costantino Spada proposes his own expressionist vision. Thus, a highly symbolic image prevails, charged with meanings that go beyond a simple reproduction of naturalistic and physiognomic data.

In this Old Sardinian, we clearly see how, in Costantino Spada's pictorial production, realist and expressionist dimensions meet and coexist in the same work. Indeed, the conception of the work demonstrates a focus on a specific reality, with its values ​​and cultural identity, with the artist's attention to a social dimension of the artwork. However, the language transcends sensory reality, and the synthetic image, constructed on the expressionistic qualities of color and paint application, becomes powerfully symbolic. The work, then, transcends the status of a portrait of a single individual to become the image of an entire community, a social strata, a cultural identity.

Costantino Spada was a painter originally from Sassari, born in 1922 and died in 1975. He made a name for himself at a young age and, along with Libero Maledina, is considered one of the most promising Sardinian painters. Between the 1940s and 1950s, he developed his style, based on realist themes but interpreted with a predominantly expressionist approach. He later also devoted himself to religious subjects. In 1940, he frescoed the Sacristy of San Donato with a story of Christ. He later also worked on the churches of San Giuseppe, San Sisto, Servi di Maria, and the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Sassari, reaching the pinnacle of his artistic expression with the frescoes and paintings in the Church of the Sacred Heart.

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