Mario Schifano (1934-1998) - Vulcano

Mario Schifano (1934–1998) – “Vulcano”
Technical data sheet
• Title: Volcano
• Author: Mario Schifano
• Technique: enamel-based screen printing on paper (a technique typical of Schifano editions from the 1990s)
• Dimensions: 70 × 50 cm
• Edition: limited edition 98/199
• Signature: hand-signed at bottom-right
• Blind stamp: “Mario Schifano” (typical guarantee of official editions)
• Condition: excellent condition
• Period: the 1990s (the artist's mature phase)
• Provenance: Gallery
• Frame: without a frame
There is no text provided to translate.
MEANING OF THE WORK – Critical Interpretation
“Vulcano” is one of the recurring themes in Schifano's graphic production of the 1990s.
It is part of his research on landscape as a symbol and as the explosive energy of nature.
The volcano as a "world-image".
In Schifano's poetics, especially from the 1980s onward:
• the landscape becomes the central subject,
• the images are intense, synthetic, almost 'natural icons',
• the color has an emotional function, not a descriptive one.
The volcano is:
• pure energy,
• creative and destructive impulse,
• the archetypal image of natural strength.
The 'pop-matter' aesthetics
The textural enamel screen print:
• simulate a physical painting,
• makes the surface vibrant and tactile,
• accentuates the 'image-screen' effect typical of Schifano.
It's a meeting between:
• pop language (immediate image, with synthetic contours)
• a material and gestural sensibility.
Color like a detonation.
Color, in the Schifano years of the 1990s:
• is fired up, decisive, never naturalistic,
• becomes an event, like the eruption itself.
The volcano thus becomes a symbol:
• of the unconscious,
• of the creative energy,
• of the vitality that breaks through the barriers.
Schifano and Seriality
The choice of the print run (199 copies) is in line with its logic:
• make the image accessible,
• while preserving the autograph signature and the material intervention.
These works are not mere reproductions:
They are artist-authored screenprints with a strong painterly character.