The Departure of the Argonaut
Artist: Francesco Clemente (Italian, born 1952)
Publisher: Petersburg Press, [New York and London], 1986
Printer: lithographs: Rolf Neumann, Stuttgart
text: Staib & Mayer, Stuttgart
Binder: Helmut Koss, Cologne
Author: Alberto Savinio (Italian, 1891-1952)
Date: 1986
Dimensions:
box: 26 1/2 x 20 3/4 x 1 1/2 in. (673 x 527 x 38mm)
book: 25 3/4 x 20 1/8 x 3/4 in. (654 x 511 x 19mm)
page: 25 1/2 x 19 5/8 in. (648 x 498mm)
Medium: Original prints: 49 lithographs in black and in colors
Text: letterpress in black with red (typeface: Bembo)
Paper: ivory mouldmade Okawara kozo paper
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Gift of Molly and Walter Bareiss and Mrs. George W. Stevens Fund
Object number: 1986.45
Label Text:Alberto Savinio (1891-1952), born Andrea de Chirico (brother of the artist Giorgio), wrote this text to chronicle his 1917 wartime journey (by train and ship) from Farrara to the Salonika front. The author presented his complex diary/travelogue as a parallel to the ancient Greek account of Jason's voyage with the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. Clemente, who had long admired Savinio's text, selected it for his most ambitious illustrated book to date -- a monumental undertaking which took three years to complete. Clemente's lithographs simultaneously derive from his own repetoire of personalized figurative expression, which ranges from the provocative and sexual to the metaphysical, and from stimuli in the text. Some of the black monochromatic lithographs incorporate brooding self portraits and other self-indulgent imagery. The vividly-colored lithographs dramatically "wash over" the text. the rest of the lithographs, such as the depiction of nautical knots and signal flags, are clues to the journey theme. Clemente's diverse images reflect the varied moods of the author's involuntary odyssey.
Francesco Clemente, The Departure of the Argonaut. Text by Alberto Savinio (1986)
The work of Francesco Clemente is often autobiographical or self-referential. Metamorphosis, displayed through disembodiment and transport, is a basic theme in Clemente’s work. The metamorphosis is often applied to representations of the artist himself as he is transformed between male and female, man and animal, or a combination.
Clemente chose to illustrate the writing of Alberto Savinio in part because it is suffused with a sense of Italy’s loss of civility, refinement, and frivolity. The text is a travelogue, written in 1917, which tells the story of Savinio’s experience in the First World War.
Clemente’s work for this book is not narrative or illustrative in the classic sense although a nautical theme, associated with a transport boat in the narrative, is carried throughout the book in the representations of signal flags and nautical knots.
Clemente’s images often encroach upon, and at times, completely overlay the text. The use of transparent color, similar to watercolor washes, conveys lightness, accentuating the feeling of disembodiment inherent in the imagery while allowing the text to be read. The artist wrote, “Fancy, artifice, imagination, contradiction, virtuosity, licentiousness—all are present in abundance, yet always with the requisite lightness of touch.”
195 words
FK12.0
Francesco Clemente, The Departure of the Argonaut. Text by Alberto Savinio (1986)
The work of Francesco Clemente is often autobiographical or self-referential. Metamorphosis, displayed through disembodiment and transport, is a basic theme in Clemente’s work. The metamorphosis is often applied to representations of the artist himself as he is transformed between male and female, man and animal, or a combination.
Clemente chose to illustrate the writing of Alberto Savinio in part because it is suffused with a sense of Italy’s loss of civility, refinement, and frivolity. The text is a travelogue, written in 1917, which tells the story of Savinio’s experience in the First World War.
Clemente’s work for this book is not narrative or illustrative in the classic sense although a nautical theme, associated with a transport boat in the narrative, is carried throughout the book in the representations of signal flags and nautical knots.
Clemente’s images often encroach upon, and at times, completely overlay the text. The use of transparent color, similar to watercolor washes, conveys lightness, accentuating the feeling of disembodiment inherent in the imagery while allowing the text to be read. The artist wrote, “Fancy, artifice, imagination, contradiction, virtuosity, licentiousness—all are present in abundance, yet always with the requisite lightness of touch.”
195 words
FK12.0
Not on view
In Collection(s)