Portable island

Towards the end of the 1920s, Savinio began a series of works that were to occupy him until 1930, in which disorderly assortments of objects and toys find a setting in natural scenes, playing with an idea of landscape conveyed in the traditional manner. The first of these, as Savinio himself recalls in his monograph of 1949, edited by himself, was “Objects Abandoned in the Forest” (1927-1928, private collection). The evolution of this figurative discourse, through surprising visions in which reality is imbued with a playful aspect, is aimed at providing visual evidence of the concept – expressed in his autobiography Tutta la Vita – that humans dwell unconsciously in a world inhabited by mysteries. This idea was further developed in subsequent works, in which the playful prevails over the setting of the landscape: the elements that previously formed natural backgrounds are reduced in proportion to become toy models themselves. Thus in “Portable Island”, in which the portability referred to in the title now refers to a new concept of landscape, shifted – also in scale – to the size of a board game. At the same time, nature also changes: it is no longer typical European woodland, but lush tropical plants and palms. These are systematically rendered in dull grey tones – inspired by the engravings by Eduard Riou in the book The World Before the Deluge by the scientific writer Louis Figuier, published in Paris in 1863 – in contrast to the bluish background of the lazily choppy sea and the clear sky, across which two enigmatic geometric shadows glide, like disturbing eagles. The artist offers us his reflection on art, i.e. on that which is at the same time its prerogative and limit: the capacity to only grasp a portion of reality at a time, the general and ultimate sense of which nevertheless remains beyond the artist’s reach, at least as far as this miniature island is from the true landscape in the background.