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THE ART OF DE POLI   -   text of Guido Perocco, director of the Modern Art Gallery Ca' Pesaro of Venezia

And what has he not reached in this continual attempt to attain his goal, what forms has he not modelled, what new and unexpected effects has he not obtained in’ the iridescent range of colors?

Paolo De Poll first began working spasmodically with copper and silver in 1921. Then he changed to painting for some years and took part in the Biennale of Venice as a painter. Since 1934 he has devoted himself exclusively to the art of enameling on copper.

 Hidden under this great love, there is a secret link which binds him the another great Venetian artist of our times,  perhaps the greatest of recent generations, Arturo Martini, whose love was ceramics.

Martini’s inventive sense did not terminate with his results: as soon as ho had fi­nished one work he relapsed in a crisis until there came to him a new idea which could overcome the laws of plastic art.

De Poli is like Martini in his love of risk, the attempt to go ever further, the eter­nal search after something that is hidden in its material and is waiting to be dis­covered.

 A simple copper object, if it is enameled, acquires an unexpected splendor af­ter the fusion of the vitreous material — its transformation becomes more enchant­ing as it preserves the very nature of metal, like the lucid, golden, copper base. At the beginning, we stand marveling at the potentialities of man, and what nature, almost mysteriously, can reveal.

 A bowl of linear form becomes another thing, a precious fragment of some ma­rine shell or a bank of coral; fantasy must always be used to discover these new aesthetic values which give life to mere forms and are then carried into effect by the patience, humility and insistence of a man who loves his work to the point of fanatism.  

De Poli has the gifts of an old master, a patience as strong as the faith he has used ever since he began his work with enamels on little metal plates, made pre­cious by the combination of varying pictorial tones. He then went on from very simple vases to more complicated ones, plates, bowls, boxes, small pictures, big

mural decorations, furniture with ornamented surfaces, fireplaces, unique pieces for collectors, animals, and big tondo works.

 Embossing works, especially if in heavy relief, sometimes allow him to obtain new effects never before attempted, and by introducing various thicknesses into the relief, he obtains more splendid and lucid tonalities.

 De Poli’s enamels tend towards a single concept in the variety of their forms: the artist has tried to model, from simple forms, groups of objects stemming from the same source. From the line of a vase, he has succeeded in reproducing that of a plate, then that of a bowl, a cup or a bottle.

 In the vitreous preciosity of his material, other creations seem almost capricious and, fantasy following fantasy, forms draw near to the most unexpected sugges­tions of nature: the iridescent wings of a dragonfly, the translucid surface of mother-of-pearl, the tactile fragility of dead leaves.

Fire fulfils itself in the almost magic art of fusion, when the material passes from the fluid to the crystalline state, assuming at the same time the sheen of coral, the brilliant depths of precious stones. It seems impossible not to believe that the ar­tist too is hallucinated by the beauty of his material and its metamorphosis. It is essential to dominate it at the right moment, thus foreseeing every effect with calculated modernity of style, adjusting the plan of the surface, the modulation of line, the composition, the plasticity of form, to obtain works of art that have an unmistakable fascination.

In the field of enamels, Paolo De Poli is the most famous Italian artist. We make this affirmation tout court without stating the official qualifications for such a decisive judgement but, for the sake of statistics, it is as well to set them out here: 13 attendances at the Biennali of Venice, one Gran Premio and 3 gold medals at the Triennale of Milan, a big personal exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts of New York, a series of exhibitions in various American museums and in the biggest European centers.

These successes, as can often happen, have not spoiled the artist, because De Poll has kept the passion for his work intact, like an unsatisfied amateur, with the freshness and youthful enthusiasm of a person who is invigorated day by day. It is his secret. He uses his technical experience, and knows how to utilize it each time to reach that purity of form and color which endures a lifetime.