Picture of the Week: Loving Prophecy by Tito Salomoni
April 11, 2022
Tito Salomoni was an Italian surrealist painter. He began composing surrealist works in 1968 and committed to the movement for twenty years. A term coined by French critic and poet Andre Breton in 1924, surrealism encourages “pure psychic automatism,” breaking down the barriers between the conscious and the unconscious. Surrealism was originally a literary movement but eventually made its way into the visual arts. Salomoni’s style is reminiscent of fellow Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico, who is credited for inspiring many surrealist artists. Like de Chirico, “Salomoni’s style is characterized by haunting dream-like settings filled with references to classical architecture.” Salomoni’s work has been featured on international magazine covers; His The Maze of Life was included in Graphis Annual 1979, “the collection of the world’s finest published posters.” He engages viewers with his paintings by creating a charade in his work for the viewer to find the answer to. Salomoni goes beyond the figures and objects in painting to derive thoughts, illusions, and overall deeper meanings in his work.
In his 1979 lithograph Loving Prophecy, Salomoni creates a naturalistic rendering of two children in what appears to be a playroom transformed into a makeshift art studio. One child poses on a rocking horse with a paper hat and a wooden sword, while the other child paints an intricate portrait of him. The children look very young, so the fact that one of them has painted such a realistic portrait comes as a surprise. What may also come as a shock is the patience of the children, as a portrait of this caliber would require countless hours to complete. Rather than painting the posing child exactly as he was, the young artist elevates his status; he dresses him in the clothes of a European general, a real sword in hand, mounted on a real horse with a flowing mane as he prepares to brave the terrain of a vast landscape. On the floor between the two children lays a scrap of paper with a rough draft of the painting, suggesting that the artist has been preparing for the final work. The incorporation of a painting within a painting creates a meta visual effect, contributing to its surrealist quality.
The title of the work, Loving Prophecy highlights that the children dream big; perhaps someday the posing child will be a brave hero, and the young artist will be world renowned. Dreams feel more tangible when we are children, free of the perceived barriers that we develop as adults. By incorporating children in this work, Salomoni highlights the youthful aspect of surrealism: a perspective that aids us in accepting the surreal as real, in believing that our dreams can be our reality.
Written by Angela Athnasios
Sources: "Tito Salomoni Surreal Paintings" rogallery.com
Hamilton, George Heard. "Chapter 7: Dada and Surrealism" in Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880-1940: 389.