Franco Fontana. America

We knew Franco Fontana’s landscapes, which he created in a wide and colouristic composition where graphic simplicity was the rule and of which the book Skyline appeared in 1978 as a result. The subject of American metropolises accompanied by their inevitable urban tumult seemed a priori to go against the coherence of his earlier work with beautiful lines and neat chromatic tints. So what was he going to be looking for in the big American metropolises during his various trips from 1985 to 2001? While his usual compositions are of a regular, readable and articulate classicism, his American images are undeniably imbued with Italianity. with the taste for harmony and geometric balance of the Renaissance fathers. The colored bands of the landscapes of yesteryear here become stepped planes. The choice of the overall plan makes the characters more sketched outlines than individualities.