25 NATURA MORTA FANTASTICA - EN

25. Natura morta fantastica 1960-70 ink and watercolour on paper, 24 x 34 cm.

The horizontal work depicts a lobster perfectly centered on the sheet and can also be understood as a variant of the still life genre. It stands out in front of one of the “useless” machines that populate the paintings of his Simbolismo meccanico.

Catarsini juxtaposes the animated object with the inanimate one and, in the evident contrast between nature and human artifice, reveals the point of contact and contradiction between the crustacean’s armor and the machine’s iron plates, perhaps alluding to nature’s useless and fragile attempt to oppose the devices created by man. Note the precise and punctual definition of the lobster’s anatomy, rendered through dense hatching, natural dots and watercolour half-tones, even in the shadow projected on the plane that increases the three-dimensional effect and reveals his graphic ability.

Insights

This technical precision should be understood not so much as a search for virtuosity, but as a predisposition to the rendering of natural data – which comes directly from nineteenth-century naturalism, that is, from the roots of his temperament – and which, through a continuous process of refinement, now highlights the function of technique in artistic work.

The technical artifice, that is, now appears functional to the unveiling of the role of art. Technique is always at the service of the artist, who uses it to express his thoughts.

In Simbolismo meccanico, Catarsini relates natural and mechanical elements through the superposition of forms, distinguishing himself from the previous approach based on intersection. This stylistic choice makes the comparison between the world of the machine and that of nature, embodied in this case by the marine animal, more evident.