Architectural Fantasy (recto); Architectural Details (verso) n.d.

Curator: Oh, I’m immediately drawn to this drawing, it feels like a Piranesi fever dream! Editor: Indeed! What we're observing is a piece entitled "Architectural Fantasy," created by Mauro Antonio Tesi. This mixed-media work, employing drawing, ink, colored pencil, and print on paper, embodies the Baroque style. It’s held here at the Art Institute of Chicago, allowing us to marvel at its exploration of form. Curator: "Fantasy" is the right word, I think. The lines are so restless, like the architecture itself is breathing. The perspective bends in unexpected ways, and my eye bounces all around searching for a place to land. Editor: Precisely. Tesi masterfully utilizes line, a defining element of Baroque aesthetics, to create dynamic movement. Observe the geometry. How the arches, columns, and various structural components establish a complex interplay of forms—a semiotic dance of order and controlled chaos. Curator: Chaos for sure! You know, there's almost a childlike quality to the frenetic mark-making. As if he's sketched his vision down quick before it floats away. Though "childlike" meets Roman ruins! It's also pretty incredible how much depth he creates using, really, mostly line. Editor: His economy of line serves a distinct purpose. It focuses our attention on the essence of form and structure. The limited use of color subtly guides our perception, allowing the architectural lines to take center stage. The contrasting verso, titled "Architectural Details," furthers this focus on line, offering us minute articulations of structural elements that serve to reinforce Tesi's structural investigations. Curator: It’s funny. Looking at this makes me feel tiny, yet powerful. I guess that's the appeal of Baroque, right? Grandeur with an invitation. Like the door is always open to get lost in its intricacies, inviting you to become one small but significant part of it all. Editor: Precisely. We are positioned as active participants in Tesi’s vision. By exploring the form and style, as Tesi implores, we expand the capacity to explore how line impacts our emotional landscape when encountering spatial relationships, and invites new relationships between perception, experience and understanding. Curator: And really, who doesn’t want an open invitation to their own magnificent landscape? Editor: It does beckon. Indeed, perhaps our encounter with Tesi will linger as we each construct our personal experiences within architecture of all kinds.