Saint Anthony of Padua (Sant'Antonio de Padova)) 1969

Pietro Parigi’s woodcut gives us Saint Anthony, but he’s really giving us the cut of the wood, the cut of the line, and the cut of the idea. Imagine Parigi standing at his block, thinking about Saint Anthony. I’m thinking about the sharp blade he must have used to carve away at the wood. Look at the cut of the robes, the face, the book, the lily, and that fire! Those are confident cuts, like he knows exactly where he wants to go. I’m sure he didn’t, though. That’s the beauty of it. He probably hesitated and second-guessed, going back and forth between the image of the saint in his head, and the blade in his hand. The act of cutting becomes a form of thinking. A slash here, a curve there, it’s all saying something, even if we don’t know exactly what. It’s all part of the conversation that artists have with themselves, with each other, and with us.