Forward slash

Fontana slashed holes into his canvases to make the viewer rethink the idea of 'space', in a simple but futuristic move he called "art for the Space Age".

Darkness and depth

Fontana lined the backs of these pictures with a black gauze, which gives the illusion of endless depth behind.

Serial slasher

This is one of many slashed canvases Fontana made from the 1950s onwards, some cut just once, and some multiple times.

The style

The blue-and-green style of this painting, which appears beautiful and luxurious, was often specially chosen to depict subjects of Daoist paradise, imperial parks, and past golden ages such as the Han (202 BCE-220 CE) and the Tang dynasties (618-907 CE).

The features

This work reveals many features of early narrative paintings in landscape settings from the Tang dynasty. The steep mountain forms are complex in structure, their surfaces filled with heavy washes of azurite, malachite, and ochre.

The clouds

White clouds encircle the mountains for a dramatic effect, while numerous peaks and hills are capped by lines of trees.

The trees

Even in the middle and foreground, which are clearly delineated, landscape forms are also embellished with vegetation and flowering trees.

The horses

Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of this gorgeous landscape is the line of figures and horses making their way along the mountain path.