Comfortably Through the Tunnel of Matter

     On walking plains, violet cubes exchange their echoes.  Abstract
pyramids spell out the alphabet of the golden age.
     Why don't we continue to use those wooden landscapes, so practical
with their handy handles?
     Isn't that a tower riding another tower down there at a knightly
and solemn gait, toward an armed ball, a pink city at the end of the
world?  Round, angular, stuffed, pointed, sharp, slender all at once,
the proud edifice is heading toward a pink city at the end of the world.
     A wheel of white feathers, as large as a sun, is revolting above a
blue abyss, and each spin reveals colored forms.  Calm, smoking, fully
aware of their strength, they enter the arena.  Who would dare to pit
himself against them?
     Braided air, liquid marble, and resin paraphs crowd and push
through gaps.
     A bone-lamp with an ebony flame constructs dreams.

     These wicked rattles and forks are akin to the moon of Anaximander,
which the Ionian stated to be a circle like the wheel of a chariot and
whose hub is hollow and filled with fire exactly like the sun.  Its
position is likewise oblique, and it has only one suction hole, identical
to that of a pair of bellows.  It clouds over for us in accordance with
the revolutions of the wheel.  The lunar eclipse is caused by the fact
that the entrance to the suction hole, through which the fire passes,
chokes up.  By their spirit, form, and color, Magnelli's paintings are
those of the first men, the first thinkers and contemplators of nature.
     The world of Magnelli's paintings also reminds me of Petronius of
Himera, one of the most ancient Pythagoreans.  Petronius taught that
there were 183 worlds arranged in the shape of an equilateral triangle,
each side of which contains 60 worlds.  Each of the remaining three 
worlds is placed at one of the apexes; but the worlds that follow one
another on one level touch, calmly revolting in a circle as in a dance.

     Magnelli's constructions do not deny the earth.  They do not eschew
the motley multitude of the earth.  They have said goodbye once and
for all, and turned their backs to the bridge of sighs, the gondolas, and
the church ceilings crawling with sky.  Magnelli's paintings are not
frauds, nor imitations of the world.  They are pure and full of reality.
In the years of unreal darkness, 1941 and 1942, the reality of beauty
was the sole consolation of our little circle in Grasse.  Sonia Delaunay,
Sophie Taeuber, Susi Magnelli, Alberto Magnelli, and I were part of
this circle.  During those years Magnelli developed a plethora of projects
which he is now carrying out with utmost mastery.  This easy-going work
closely links him with the popular art of the great eras.  The black,
the brown, and the blue in Magnelli's paintings bring to mind the colors
of frescoes during the early eras of Crete.  His works could furnish an
equivalent to those august and serene decorations.  They are natural
ornaments devoid of bravura and bravado.
     Floral geometries move around a hub.
     A yellow cloak wraps itself up in silence and brandishes yellow rulers.
     This oscillates and unfolds into infinity contrary to all laws of
hyper-adulated perspective.
     Often a brooding storm comes up in Magnelli's paintings, an enigmatic
intertwining of black and comfortable lightning.  The skyscraper and the
angular vacillate, lean over here and there, threatening, and bend down
as if wanting to throw away its many colored spaces like ballast to rise
beyond measure.
     Isn't that a square atop a triangle?  An oval turns gray, grows old,
and even older.
     Things drop, and Magnelli readily leaves them suddenly clotted and
suspended.  His things never drip into infinity.  They seem to live without
torment or fear.  Even his stone colossi burst without commotion.  
Sometimes, as though on stilts, an alien white appears, without knowing
why or how, its chest covered over with shimmering incrustations
and jigsaw ornaments.  Plane surfaces, armed with claws and teeth,
servilely greet the white alien.
     Before these heaped-up and probably transparent panels, there
occurs a leaping, a gliding similar to that of acrobats when they fly
from one trapeze to another.  But Magnelli never creates the impression
of executing a somersault.  Needless to say, he is always natural and
naturally full of ease.
     A fabulous world rolls freely through the tunnel of matter.

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