Paesaggio Nordico 1972

Gustavo Foppiani made this untitled abstract landscape using paint. It has this lovely muted palette, all browns, creams, and blacks, that gives it a somber, thoughtful vibe. You can see how he's layered the paint, like building up a history of marks and gestures. There’s a real sense of process here, of the painting evolving over time. I find myself drawn to the way the colours seem to work both with and against each other, creating this sense of tension and release. Like in the bottom right hand corner, there’s this great big black blob with this trail of white dots, kind of like a snail crawling, but then also kind of like a musical scale. It puts me in mind of Morandi, who like Foppiani, was also Italian, and interested in creating simple meditations on form and colour. It’s nice to think of art as a big, ongoing conversation across time.