Untitled 1938

Bice Lazzari created this untitled work with paint on cardboard in 1935. The repetitive, vertical dashes against a horizontal backdrop immediately bring to mind the visual language of ancient counting systems. Consider the abacus, with its beads lined up in rows, a tool used for millennia across cultures. Or the quipu of the Incas, knotted cords that recorded complex data. Lazzari’s dashes, suspended in their warm, earthy field, echo this primal human impulse to quantify and make sense of the world. This recalls the human desire to bring order to the chaos of existence, a psychological need that transcends time. Perhaps Lazzari tapped into a deep-seated, collective memory, a yearning for structure and understanding that resonates even in abstraction. She invites us to contemplate the enduring power of symbols in our quest for meaning.