FINAL REPORT ON THE WORK PROJECT under the "Research and study on 'Opera del Maestro Antonio Pala" (first year)

That time, slumped in a chair, Antonio Pala stared at the floor, Anita, his wife, gasped worried. She had spoken to him and received no response. Lui era
absorbed, seemed alien to everything and everyone except a tile: after a long walk on distracted, suddenly had noticed that those geometric markings, those reasons just mentioned, those colors become muted and worn from being walked home were animated by a vital force of inspiration. He stood, reached the easel and prepared brushes and palette. There was an episode inconsueto. Antonio Pala drew creative impulses shapes seemingly most ordinary and the most unexpected moments: a view from the window, A meeting on the street, una pietra, a forsaken bough. The poteva, brought home a piece of wood or stone and studying contours, physical complexion, chromatic elements, light reflections. Meditated, then modeled, or sculpted, or whittling, o dipingeva, transforming impressions in new figures. If not for him as "meditative artist". Chased his thoughts, reflected, parlava poco. Its strong confidentiality, for those who do not know it thoroughly, could be mistaken for introversion; but to discover the true character needed to see it in the family, delicate, jovial, high spirits with his wife and children. Dear colleagues, generous to all. A man from another time. Toeddu Pala affectionately called him in Laerru, where he was born and where he returned - between old friends - whenever he could. From Laerru had to get away very soon, in order to pursue their studies. Only twelve years old he moved to Sassari, where he took the road of his aspirations by enrolling at the Art Institute and winning the attention of renowned artists such as Filippo Figari, Stanis Dessy, Mario Delitala, Eugenio Tavolara. Of which in the early days he was influenced style, first to break free to express that kind personal and unique that would characterize his long career as a painter, designer, engraver, sculptor. So, in the footsteps of the great artists of the early twentieth century Sardinian, he broke big in the second half of the century, contributing to the complex task of renewal pictorial game by Mauro Manca and ride the new recruits, emerging young, I decided to get rid of a historicity worn, stifled by repetitive mixes "folk" and engaged in a naturalism however anachronistic. But with the movements of the period ribellistici, Pala had nothing to do. Also because there were not many direct contacts between him and peers who worked in Cagliari and Sassari raising scandal among the traditionalists related to "good painting".
When they were born in the capital and intersecting groups "Studio 58" (Pantoli, Time, Mibelli, Ized, Rossi, Brundu, Ugo) and "Initiative" (still Pantoliano and Brundu, with Staccioli, Mazzarelli, Fantini, Agus, Casula), and when the impatience factor "Sardinians" theory was in the academic and critic (Corrado Maltese, Mario Ciusa Romagna, Francesco Masala, the young Salvatore Naitza), Pala viveva a forzato isolation to Teulada, country geographically close but culturally distant from the ferment of the modernist city. A 28 years had obtained a teaching post there and came perhaps only the echo of the industrious swarm neoavanguardistico who meanwhile also transformed the art school Sassari. E purtuttavia marciava in parallelo, excluded from the debate, subject to influences, devoid of theoretical and practical models without stimuli. Confined to his hermitage sulcitano, He had plenty of time to paint, nor was short of subjects. He looked, thought, created, moving along a line too unconsciously demystifying. Stimulating for artists such as Biasi, Goats, Here (and returned from each according to his interpretive key), Teulada proved to be no less interesting for Antonio Pala, depicting people and landscapes, angles and contexts in his own way: not joyful or solar, nor ethnic, nor celebratory. Unlike his eye, compared to the other, why not retinal but psychological, driven by conviction and realistic tones consequently raw. Dominate, in this period, severe scenarios and subjects, brushstrokes pasty, dense colors, dark, soberly Terrosi. Faces academically imperfect, yet realistic. The address is clearly expressionist and in this way he walks Shovel with decision, attentive to the human environment and loneliness of spirit. Spalle curve, head sunk, faces pointing in different directions, four men resigned in velvet and cloth cap, faces afisionomici, sit around the table in the tavern, glasses of wine in hand, each prisoner of his own hermetic individuality, crushed by the weight of common problems but incommunicable. Brown dresses, brown table, anonymous background of shades of brown. A sad picture. They said "Sad, too sad ... Change!”, e lui sorrideva. He went on his own came time to change mood, and this happened because his role as a teacher led him to Cagliari. It was the 1966 and finally the cominciò respirare fresh aria, although over the years teuladini they had not missed all relations with the artistic. After his debut in Rome in '57 (in a youth art exhibition when he was just 23 age), had been involved in Cagliari in a couple of group shows the first of which the Friends of the Book, at the invitation of Nicola Valley; and he realized that his paintings recalled interest. It did not take long to set up his official inauguration (in the Upper Room 1960): first solo exhibition in a long chain that in the next half-century would have been appreciated not only in Sardinia but in Tuscany and Veneto, in Campania e in Puglia, in Umbria e in Lombardia, in short, a little 'everywhere in Italy, with important steps in Rome and Paris. With the changing of the artistic climate together with the social and political, in the decade between the Sixties and Seventies, mature the new mood of Toeddu Pala, who is organizing the workshop in Via Oristano. Have a printing system, so as to meet on their own passion for woodcut and etching. At that retreat smokes a lot, takes a lot of coffee, works among the many pastas oil, bristles, pencils, charcoals, sgorbie, tablets-matrices, chalk, scalpelletti, wood in the rough. Receive and exchange impressions with artist friends (Valerio Pisano, Leo Pes, Piergiorgio Gomez, Rene Rejinich). The most obvious change is in the outcome of the brush. It lightens the weight of the color, while emphasizing the concern of the sign and it shows attention to social events, the existential anxieties, meanings. In the creative transformation, Blade undergoes a striking representation of non-realistic, often indefinable and haunting as a dream. A bad dream is for example the Apocalypse (1976), represented in a nightmare scenario with Death riding hanging on buildings on fire and fierce crowd movement in a panic. The metamorphosis in style is a symptom of orientation towards certain human values ​​that the artist sees around him corrupt and that henceforth ideally try to recover with a new visual language, albeit consistent in choosing antitradizionalista. The grotesque soon gives way to the restlessness of the form, almost to the contemplation; chromaticism clouded clears the net but serene serenity of colors; deformed traits are softened without losing the cutting synthetic and angular profiles. The scenic apparatus loses drama, buy physical space and psychological calmness in the breath. In this renewal of aesthetic Antonio Pala highlights themes that are dear, by religious spirituality (transmitted for evocative images and sacred representations) the literary symbolism (see the series quixotic), by an interest in the still life to the poetry of the landscape (Boat, boats, views of Cagliari). It gives life to unpublished content, inventing a feminine universe that has few parallels. Sensual women, women dreamers, strong women, Amazons and Angels, confuse tra realtà e mito, impenetrable by the expressions, in their elusive transcendent mysticism. Women ambiguous, Quiet, religiose and profane, told in real estate poses and looks away, immersed in the rarefied atmosphere and unreal, which shows the strength of the arcane feminine charm. A world at Delvaux, apart from the absence of pictorial style between the Sardinian artist and Belgian. Gives sole, or in a group but closed in on themselves in a common atmosphere of dreamy melancholy. One looks away, a law in a quiet small railway station, other orchestral instruments playing classical, others sing in front of the lectern - and seem to hear melodic polyphony dedicated to the deity. They are everywhere, among the arcades of the city and over the roofs. The angel violinist caressing the strings hovering in the celestial waves of wind that are mixed up with those of the sea So Cagliari is suspended in limbo land sea sky light, cradled and protected by its imaginary women. Pala also flies him, idealize in terms fairytale figures and scenes described with a sharp-edged and vague primitivism that it exacerbates the distortions; told with the taste of soft colors flattered by the wealth of lights and contrasts. And so it hovers in the realism of the subconscious attitude expressed in the symbolism of the unconscious dimension hooked the enigmatic surrealist. He is no stranger to so much creativity and inspiring new space that has meanwhile gained a few tens of meters from his home in Piazza Gramsci. In the eighties it has detected a ground floor apartment in Via San Lucifer; knocked down the partitions and transformed those hundred square meters in a vast, load objects, diamonds, sculptures, a hermitage protected intimate and full of vitality, Operating silently. There is in perfect ease, you talk in the morning and evening since he left school, draws, sculpts, paints. Now the paintings are larger and (preferably) tables on which the brushes passes. E 'in this oasis hushed and inviolate - in the heart of a lively and congested traffic - it takes the body a work of the most beautiful and amazing: is a great Christ on the cross, measures of natural, the physical torn, the suffering face but bright serenity merciful: a masterpiece of strict adherence realistic that conveys emotion and spirituality. Gliel'hanno asked Laerru, he carved in wood with talent commanded by heart and donated to the parish church, which now also boasts a Via Crucis extraordinarily effective artistic and religious: fourteen paintings, made in oil and mixed media, that tell an impressive anguish of Calvary, exciting in its plastic expressionist language Toeddu With these works, the soul remains forever in Laerru, as if he had never been away. He wanted to return to, perhaps, in the last years of his artistic maturity that produced a massive quantity of paintings, sculptures, drawings, inks, tempera, charcoal and white lead, decollages, monotypes accurately machined to press, incisions that are still poorly understood despite the robust thickness and crew. I mysteries, 1987, linocut, 50 x 70 cm Venere, 1987, linocut, 50 x 70 cm You may think that a form of mental privacy, magari timida modestia, prevented from entering because the author to make them circulate in the history of the proud tradition of engraving Sardinian. Shortly views, but there are, and leave impression that at least in the channels of private collectors who often escapes critical analyzes official. Certainly he was aware of the quality of his prints, but he preferred to focus primarily on the expressive power of the works in oil, and those who were entrusted to the gallery Peppino Floris who understood the value and supported him in the difficult art market. He had understood immediately, since the times of the school Sassari, Mario Delitala. "He needs to be inspired by the human element", wrote many years ago in an acute critical page in which he stressed the vigor of gesture stroke, the "right fit without meaningful concessions to rhetoric", the "constant understanding between design and expression" and the power of the "recreated through their emotions". In fact: Antonio Pala recreated reality soggettivandola and figuring the invisible. It was an intuitive ability with which he expressed himself innaturata. "Non, I propongo a theme", ci disse una sera: "Every time, stimulated by a thought, start a conversation and let me conduct reflecting on the diversity and charm of the occasional topic. He pushes me to the need to paint ch feel that what I see ". Address deceptively simple theoretical. To translate it into practice will need, genius, technique, experience, culture, qualities which he focused on fatigue. Struggled for hours, and also enjoyed.