I have always believed in the intimate connection of the relations between art and science, for intuition is an essential quality in both areas of research; and between art and mathematics, for when intuition translates into image and becomes schematised in geometrical forms, the creator of the formulas meant to represent the relationship between structures and dimensions possesses a creative and communicative ability.

These observations become obvious and even commonplace when we refer to abstract art, and in particular, to geometrical abstractism, where the problem of the relationship between form and colour had begun to emerge slightly more than a century earlier.

This introduction is to emphasise that Bruto Pomodoro not only proves such affinities and coincidences per penicilla, but also that he consciously witnesses and interprets them, he even starts off as a scientist, and then transfers his considerations as a biologist into a fertile imaginary practice, i.e. the devising of pictorial forms which are linked to his thought. And this is not the end of the matter: because the study of nature does not lead him, in his art, to represent the forms and places of the environment, but to investigate their deepest origins. So, rather than representing a theoretical and aesthetic interpretation of the world we live in, his creative patterns are a means through which to look into the deepness: into the roots of living inside space and time.

Those critics who have commented on Bruto’s work as a painter have fully understood this original and valuable essence and this peculiar quality: Bruto is conscious of his own formal roots – he himself talks about Mondrian and the Bauhaus, especially as far as the problem of the relationship between form and colour is concerned – and he theorises his own way of expression, not only in terms of content but also of stylistic form. I would even dare say that he certainly does not need any mediators to communicate what he does; nevertheless, the mediator’s role is to grasp from his point of view, i.e. his individual awareness, the artist’s message. This is a subtle message: in fact, even if the artist’s conception of nature and its forms of life is analytically based, during the creative process this conception melts, it becomes organic and homogeneous, without, however, being reduced to a compact image, which, at this point, would turn out to be magmatic: images are always differentiated in an elastic way and are run through by a geometrical/musical rhythm.

Let us take a look at his most recent works. Their titles confirm this conscious interpretative willingness: as, for instance, the Square’s praise – a square run through diagonal lines inside and enriched in its thickness thanks to the presence of three-dimensional effects emerge. Among these effects are motifs of the egg, i.e. a symbolic matrix, and of a fragmentary and curving structure, of a plastic consistence. This same structure dominates the space of the images dedicated to the archetypes: gently and, at the same time, dramatically entangled and feverish, symbols of an undergoing evolution which in some paintings is witnessed by the darting dynamism of straight lines. And the motif of the hourglass, stressed by some of the titles, is linked to the concept of the relationship between form and time, despite its reference to quiet rhythms. As Bruto says in one of his forewords, the square is in itself a symbol of order, brightness and clearness; at the same time, however, the square also slides into space where it adds to other forms with a dynamic vitality and never with convulsions or fluctuations.

I have talked about paintings, but this word is incorrect: Bruto’s technique is infinitely varied, with the frequent use of sand, which seems to witness and underline the relationship between the image, the physical reality of nature, and its elusive flow.

So, as I was saying at the beginning, there is a scientific consciousness behind all these works; art and science are not in opposition. While science enquires; art interprets: we receive its message with open feelings.

Rossana Bossaglia

From “Sull’elogio del quadrato” Exhibition catalogue –  Sarzana 2001