Discendendo verso il fiume [Descending Toward the River], 1957
Oil on Canvas
18.1 x 24 in
46 x 61 cm
Private Collection, Castellanza, Italy
With Discendendo verso il fiume [Descending Toward the River], Vanni resumes his investigation of boundary and spatial ambiguity, drawing together threads from earlier crystalline compositions while pushing toward a more fluid, experiential structure. The landscape is fractured into prismatic planes, yet no longer obeys a purely geometric logic. Instead, the forms warp and tilt, descending diagonally across the canvas in an almost gravitational pull. What had previously been static segmentation now unfolds as motion.
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With Discendendo verso il fiume [Descending Toward the River], Vanni resumes his investigation of boundary and spatial ambiguity, drawing together threads from earlier crystalline compositions while pushing toward a more fluid, experiential structure. The landscape is fractured into prismatic planes, yet no longer obeys a purely geometric logic. Instead, the forms warp and tilt, descending diagonally across the canvas in an almost gravitational pull. What had previously been static segmentation now unfolds as motion.
Vanni repurposes the language of Op Art, not for retinal agitation, but to suggest sculptural volume and directional force. Squares and diagonals accumulate into swelling surfaces and fractured ledges. Muted blues establish a subdued atmospheric base, which then gives way to sharper greens, turquoises, and high-contrast black-and-white accents.
These chromatic accelerations heighten the illusion of concavity and projection, as if the ground itself were buckling and reforming in real time. The color shifts are neither decorative nor symbolic, they act as kinetic cues, pulling the eye across the descending terrain. This work marks a turning point, as Vanni moves beyond crystalline order into a pliable, optically charged field, where space is not constructed but felt in motion.
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