A-RITMISMO

Versione italiana

Expressing oneself with the mosaic is possible
To communicate with the tessera is contemporaneity

When, on the morning of Friday 28th September 1984, Professor Argan (in presenting the sign of peace and friendship between the peoples) stated at the Casa Melandri in Ravenna that “mosaic can play modern music... new music...” “... of all the forms of applied Arts, mosaic is perhaps the only one that can be considered ART...”.
“... mosaic is not born with the board, but with the mosaicist artist...”.
“... it has all the qualifications to become an aulic language...”.
It was when Palma Bucarelli added: “it is deplorable that today’s mosaicists should confine themselves to reproduce on board famous paintings...” that I realized my beliefs as a mosaicist-artist, creator, planner and at the same time executor, had at last found some allies, and that these allies were of no little significance.
The reason for starting with the statements of famous artists is that everything I am going to say is very close to their technical explanations.
I have long pondered on my proposal, thought about it, rethought it, buried it, unearthed it, practised it, in a never ending struggle between myself, the mosaic, and the mosaicists.
My proposal is directed mainly to the A.I.M.C. which can adhere to it, if it so decides to, but it is above all a socio-cultural proposal within the contemporary artistic context.
When talking of Art, it is implied this is an “oil” painting.
Why this attitude? Art is any form of activity by man as a confirmation or exaltation of his creative talent and of his capacity for expressing it, so that he modifies himself and his habitat according to a dramatic relationship, together with individual or social needs, logical or moral.
Well, I propose to create an Artistic movement where the original vehicle to express an idea is the “tessera”.
Tesserae of any material any shape, any dimension, put close to one another, and then suddenly placed apart, consistent and inconsistent at the same time-space.
Creating, generating, “painting” with the tessera which has within itself the natural power to live through the centuries.
Let us not just think about applied Art, but also about contemporary expression, about modern Art; this indicates a specific attitude by the Artist, his will to tune his work to the thoughts, actions, more generally to he ways of life of his time, inasmuch as these ways differ from traditional or past ones.
WE LIVE IN THIS TIME!
THE BYZANTINES LIVED IN ANOTHER TIME!
We must transmit our time, which is no longer a matter of Popes and Emperors, who had temples made lavishly to display their power.
Today we have to react to the recent academic tradition in order to fit in with the needs of a society and of a culture which have been changing at an exceptionally faster and faster pace; we have to force a radical renewal in the very concept of Art.
The movement is not just about mosaic: it begins with the mosaic (the tessera), but it wants to involve Art in a general sense. The Artist being the only creator-executor of the result, with no intermediaries.
The movement relies on arhythmia... the arhythmia in our disorderly lives, marked by the hurry, based on getting immediate results. The movement is about searching for and experimenting contemporary techniques and materials.
The movement is not meant as a “monument to the mosaicist”, but rather as a creative movement of the Artist, a movement reacting to tradition, perfection, consistency, to rules of any kind.
This movement will be called A-RHYTHMISM, which means alteration of the normal rhythm, devoid of rhythm, not following the normal rhythm... lack of the drawing, only form, ... lines and colour... expression of contemporaneity.
Many are the issues to be tackled and investigated, but I will leave this subject open to those who will debate this proposal.

Felice Nittolo,
Ravenna, novembre 1984
Università di Louvain-La-Neuve Belgio-1984