Feu Nocturne 1961 - 1962

This intaglio print by Juvenal Sansò conjures a nocturnal landscape, worked with a monochromatic palette of blacks and grays. I can imagine Sansò hunched over the plate, meticulously scratching and etching to create the textured forms. There’s a somber mood about this piece, a kind of quiet intensity. I can see the artist grappling with the plate, coaxing out these shapes from the darkness. These forms are so tactile; it’s as if I could run my fingers along the surface of the print. The marks seem to crawl, building these strange, gothic, organic forms. I wonder if Sansò was thinking of Goya’s dark, dreamlike aquatints when he made this work. It is part of this painterly tradition of embodied expression, where the artist embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.