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Between 1983 and 1997 his works reached the height of maturity and a greater expressive power

The artistic vicissitudes of Toti Scialoja have provided a notable contribution to that rich cultural scenario characterised by a wealth of extraordinary artworks that is twentieth century Italian art. A painter of great intensity, a cultured and refined thinker, between 1983 and 1997 his works reached the height of maturity and a greater expressive power when compared to those of the past. Starting out form a wealth of experience he had acquired and developed since the thirties, gradually leading him away from figuration, during the eighties Scialoja elaborated a language which reached its own particular characteristics and was flanked by a complete technical mastery of painting. The selection of works presented in this catalogue, chosen for the exhibition at the Galleria dello Scudo in Verona, allows us to gauge how his work changed constantly year after year though his fundamental, codified repertoire of formal elements remained intact.

The tension in his work resulting from a balance of colour and form is of primary relevance. Black, for example, is a structuring colour in many of his paintings, while red, green, blue, yellow and grey acquire values which, in various nuances and mixtures, emerge as paraphrases of rhythm, harmony and spatial-temporal considerations. In his late paintings Scialoja reached an aesthetically allusive representation of the totality of the world, taking form in a disruptive mass of colours and indefinite forms, and provoking highly emotional reactions from his spectators. It follows indeed, that Scialoja was an artist who used painting to paint nature, but not visible nature, rather its narrative potential and inexpressible beauties.

The critical dossiers of the works exhibited, edited by Gianni Schiavon, are accompanied by images comparing variations of the same subject, iconographic comparisons and documents.

Verona, Galleria dello Scudo
9 December 2006 - 28 February 2007