The eye (1988) Ø cm 21- Oro graffito sottovetro

This feminine eye with its thick eyelashes, floating in a golden background, is full of sadness. In fact, behind the appearance of a seductive and refined object hides a melancholic subtext. The work is at the same time a tribute and a farewell to his friend Piero Fornasetti, who died suddenly that very year. If it is easy to notice the similarity with Lina Cavalieri’s eye – an icon of Fornasetti’s repertoire – less intuitive is the reference to the symbolist Odilon Redon’s drawing known as The Eye, as a bizarre balloon heads towards infinity. The very special technique used here is that of gold graffito under glass. This very rare technique can be seen in works dating back to the late Roman Empire (for example, the tondo in the Desiderio cross in Brescia). The black lines are not written in ink, as it might seem at first glance, but engraved with a fine point in the gold leaf applied to the glass.