Luxembourg Art Price 2023
|
 |
The Tree of Life and Death by Florido Pontani, 1970
Oil on canvas, H. 95 x L. 85 cm
The protagonist of the painting is the tree of life, symbol of the free will that every man has since his birth: this tree is accompanied by two figures, the first on the left is a hanged man, the second is a figure looking out in an attitude of caution and almost fear.
The hanged man represents death due to drugs: his colors are the skeletal white of the bones and the very dark blue of the life that is lost, that flows away. The other figure, alive and fearful, has the colors of life - the red of flowing blood - and observes what has happened. And next to this last figure still alive, two powerful symbolic elements are positioned: the chessboard that invites him to the last game with life, as his friend who didn't make it did, and a road, a path, which runs quickly next to him and which invites him to live the path of life in full consciousness and rectitude - the lines of this road are well delineated and straight, without curves.
The tree of life, alive, colourful, lush, always flowering, welcoming and inviting, overlooks both figures, however taking on totally different meanings for both. The hanged man is a drug addict who uses the hallucinogenic drugs, LSD, to create a state of euphoria and an illusion of happiness, a reality that is not real: the tree has posed the options of the board and the path but the alteration he preferred to play the last illusory game of a better life, leading him to death. The other figure, still alive, is in an observational attitude: he seems to be partially protecting himself behind the tree from the chessboard and at the same time heading towards the path of life, because he turns his gaze towards it.
It is 1970. These are the years of student protests in Italy but also of the hippie movement which introduces the use of soft and psychedelic drugs, the main protagonist of which is LSD. Although the pacifist and non-violent intentions of this movement are shared today, it is equally certain that the use of drugs alters the state of consciousness in the present and is extremely dangerous for man's life: believing that one is living a beautiful moment of life in one state of alteration and hallucination creates a potentially destructive disconnection with reality which sees death as the final, unconscious and irreversible act.
Thus the tree of life also becomes of death because playing with life in a dimension that is not real, such as that produced by hallucinogenic drugs, does not always allow you to win the game.
Small curiosity: the painting is signed Florido, written in the Italian alphabet. This year, 1970, will be the last in which the artist will sign himself like this: in fact, future artistic production will see the signature written in ancient Etruscan.