(Modena 1894–1956 Rome)
Isole nello spazio, c. 1932, signed Prampolini, oil on canvas, 91 x 72 cm, framed

Photo certificate:
Prof. Massimo Prampolini, Rome 14/3/2015

Provenance:
Galleria Muller, Buenos Aires (label on the reverse)
S. Bettini Collection, Buenos Aires/Rome
Visconti Collection, Rome
European Private Collection

While the Surrealists were preparing themselves to deal a hard blow to traditional anthropomorphism, moving the centre of gravity from man to the unexplored areas of the subconscious, Prampolini, albeit motivated by other considerations, underwent an analogous journey. He moved the core of his investigations from the internal to the external, to the unexplored areas of extraterrestrial space, to the microcosms of molecules and atoms, to the incipient forms of organic life, translating the secrets and adventures of modern science into portentous and spectacular visual images.
Prampolini’s painting in this period is perhaps the only attempt made in modern art to create a modern cosmology, based on the notion of relativity and on the concept of the fourth dimension, just as the cosmology of Dante’s Divine Comedy was based on mediaeval astronomy.
The pictorial cycle of cosmic idealism presents itself as a fairy-tale prefiguration of the future conquest of cosmic space
(...). The artist appropriates the evidence of scientific progress, and organises them in the manner of science fiction. He creates a type of ‘fantasy painting’ in which, as is also the case in science fiction, not only do love of adventure and of the unknown play a critical role, but also the need to explore new worlds, and new possibilities of existence. Prampolini describes this phase of painting, definitively far removed from his experience of aeropainting, as affirming his desire to “paint aerial paintings detached from every terrestrial nostalgia, in order to reach as yet unknown universes, in full cosmic drama” and to satisfy the “tendency of man to reach high, beyond the limits of the possible.”
From F. Menna, Prampolini, De Luca Editori,
Rome, 1967

(1) P. Bucarelli, preface to the catalogue of the solo exhibition at Galleria Nazionale d‘Arte Moderna, Rome 1961