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Anyone familiar with Fulvio Testa’s enchanting picture books or his
meticulous, whimsical illustrations for such children’s classics as
Aesop’s Fables
and
Pinocchio
, could be forgiven for thinking that the Fulvio Testa who paints
loosely stained images evocative of enigmatic landscapes is a completely
different individual, with the same name as the distinguished book artist. In
fact, the two are one person, complementary halves of an abundantly gifted
painter and draftsman who, not surprisingly, given his double practice and
double persona, has long divided his time between Italy and New York.
Yet longer acquaintance with Testa’s two bodies of work suggests that they
are less different than might first be assumed. Not only do his illustrations
and his “independent” paintings share an otherworldly, tender, suggestive
palette, but his poetic, allusive, watercolor “landscapes”—for lack of a better
word—are informed by the same free-wheeling imagination and rich sense
of invention that allow him to bring to life the implications of familiar texts
in fresh ways or to present a narrative by means of images alone. And like
his illustrations, Testa’s landscapes hold our attention by revealing more and
more complex visual incidents, calling up more and more associations, the
longer we spend with them.
FU L V I O T E S TA : R ECENT WORKS
By Karen Wilkin