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Crocifisso

Lucio Fontana Italian

Not on view

The abstracted crucifixion evokes the malleability of flesh through the plasticity of clay. The body of Christ disintegrates in the pressings and moldings made by the artist’s fingers, and its materiality is countered by the shifting, shimmering colors of reflective enameled surfaces. The distinction between the body and the cross is dissolved. Fontana’s figures hover ambiguously between palpable flesh and reflected ethereal light—an expression of literal and spiritual transfiguration, and of Christ’s dual nature as God and man.

Crocifisso, Lucio Fontana (Italian, 1899–1968), Ceramics, polychrome

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