Piero Guccione - Mea Culpa

This beautiful engraving was created by Piero Guccione to illustrate John Paul II's "Mea Culpa." The subject is clearly taken from Michelangelo's celebrated "Pietà." The iconographic theme of the Pietà harks back to the "Lamentation over the Dead Christ," which became popular starting in the 14th century. While the "Lamentation" is a group scene featuring more or less fixed figures (Mary, the apostle John, Mary Magdalene and the pious women, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus), the "Pietà" is a variation, featuring Mary alone with the body of Christ in her arms.

This work is highly representative of the artistic vision of Sicilian painter Piero Guccione. The aim of his art is to identify contradictions within a real dimension, small shifts in perception that give reality a different contextualization, opening glimpses of a sense of magic and metaphysics. Thus, in this engraving, the reproduction of one of the most famous monuments in the history of art is transformed into a complex vision, the fruit of the artist's inner gaze. A minimalist feel predominates, but is rendered through a graphic interweaving of rare beauty. Everything is transfigured into vision, an abstract system of lines and shapes befitting Guccione's typical rationalism. The metaphysical sense of stillness and enigmatic silence is absolute, but the subtle vibrations that run through those thin lines evoke a yearning for existentialism, and the undefined sections reaffirm the mystery of the sacred.

Piero Guccione was born in Scicli in 1935 and passed away in Modica in 2018. He studied at the Art School in Catania and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Together with painters Attardi, Calabria, Farulli, Giaquinto, and Vespignani, he was part of the "Il pro e il contro" group from 1962 to 1964, whose research focused on a new contextualization of realist poetics. He was initially an assistant to Renato Guttuso at the Academy of Rome, and in 1979 he was appointed professor of painting at the Academy of Catania. Since then, he has lived in the countryside between Scicli and Modica, often staying in Sampieri, whose landscapes have inspired many of his seascapes. Piero Guccione has always enjoyed extraordinary public and critical acclaim, and has participated in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally. He has also participated in several of the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadrennial. On December 14, 2004, Piero Guccione received the Gold Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic from Carlo Azeglio Ciampi as a deserving figure in art and culture.

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