The Dance

The Italian artist Fausto Melotti made lyrical sculptures in which he sought to create a harmonious visual image of rhythm and music. One of his striking aphorisms was: ‘The life of the arts lies in marriage. Poetry is there when it marries with the feeling of the music. Just as painting marries with the feeling of the poetry and the…

The Italian artist Fausto Melotti made lyrical sculptures in which he sought to create a harmonious visual image of rhythm and music. One of his striking aphorisms was: ‘The life of the arts lies in marriage. Poetry is there when it marries with the feeling of the music. Just as painting marries with the feeling of the poetry and the music. Just as lyrical music marries with the poetry. Just as counterpoint music marries with a three-dimensional idea.’ Melotti regarded harmony as ‘the stamp, seed and origin’ of art. As a trained pianist, engineer and member of the Abstraction-Création Constructivist group of artists headed by former De Stijl artists Georges Vantongerloo, Theo van Doesburg and others, Melotti began experimenting in the 1930s with three-dimensional structures in which he attempted to reconcile the figurative with the abstract, the metaphysical with the geometrical, and the theatrical with the musical. In the 1960s he developed slender, lightweight objects that critics often labelled as ‘immaterial anti-sculptures’. In the 1970s and 80s he ‘sculpted’ Counterpoints and Themes and variations like The dance. The latter is a frame story in which ten pairs of folded brass threads are represented choreographically. The slender metal structures serve as ideograms. They recall specific dance poses and movements from different dance styles. One of the two structures always depicts a dance pose, while the other is usually a spiral-shaped dance movement. This rhythmic connection between two objects refers to musical compositions, note against note (counterpoint). The delicate and stylised Variations consist of pliable materials, such as wire or thin metal plates of copper or gilt brass. Transparent plexiglass often serves as a subtle support or as a box. It contributes to a sense of weightlessness and elegant motion in the physical space, precise and balanced. A similar merger of technique and aesthetic was also the subject of works like the Mobiles and Stabiles by Alexander Calder, a contemporary of Melotti. They met in the Umbrian city of Spoleto, where they participated in group exhibitions in the 1960s organised by the art critic and collector Giovanni Carandente. In 1973 Melotti took part in the 12th Biennale in the Middelheim Museum. One of his exhibits was this variation on the theme of The dance, which was then bought by the KMSKA.