The blue, purple, and scarlet embroidered parochet covering and adorning the holy areas of the desert Tabernacle (Exodus 26) forever connected these colors with the concept of sanctity of place – and ultimately with Jerusalem.
This color palette is woven throughout the Hebrew scriptures, for example in Ezekiel’s vision of the divine chariot (Merkava); and in Christian scriptures, for example in Saint John the Baptist’s apocalyptic visions.
Rome-based painter and illustrator Giovanni Guida, 32, therefore favors shades of cerulean blue, violet, and purple in his biblically inspired works.
In several major European art encyclopedias produced this year for the centennial of surrealism, Guida is the youngest painter included among masters of the grattage method.
Grattage, a technique developed by German artist Max Ernst, involves scratching or scraping a still-wet painting to reveal underlying primordial layers beneath the pigment.
Metaphorically, grattage provides a peek into the subconscious, revealing hidden emotions and memories.
Guida, who first learned this method in 2005 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, employs it to provide a glimpse into the sacred core of biblical images.
“Through this surrealist process, the immaterial artist ‘unveils’ himself and reaches the blue of the soft blueness of the sky, the true color of the depth in which the Absolute manifests itself without veils [parochet],” he explained.
“The grattage technique penetrates the color and allows the process of unveiling, letting you see what is hidden in the underlying layer without trying to tear away what is hidden.”
In his oil painting Tearing of the Veil of the Temple, a prime example of his novel application of grattage, Guida employs violet and cerulean hues to depict the tearing of the veil of the Temple of Jerusalem upon the death of Jesus, as described in Matthew 27.
“When this veil, or curtain, is broken, it is possible to contemplate open and torn heavens forever,” he said, as the curtain symbolizes the separation between humanity and God.
Guida traces the evolution of his grattage methodology to his visit to Jerusalem in 2019, when his icon Caesarius Diaconus was exhibited in the Terra Sancta Museum.
Caesarius of Terracina, a Christian martyr killed in 107 CE, is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Guida’s icon of Caesarius has been exhibited in museums, cathedrals, and basilicas in many countries alongside preserved relics of the saint.
While in Jerusalem, he said, “I decided to visit the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, located within the walls of the Old City, with the prayer to make me become an immaterial artist, far from the conventions, from the stereotypes of contemporary art.”
Here, he experienced “the poetry of pure contemplation, in which absence is presence,” leading him to “arrive at the highest metaphor of love in art that allows you to ‘ascend’ and enter into the truth of the mystery of art.”
It was here that his iconological and iconographic study of the grattage pictorial technique began, linking the tearing of the veil of painting with the tearing of the veil of the Temple.
He recalled, too, his excitement upon visiting the Western Wall, “the only remnant of the Temple of Jerusalem, where all the depth of the tear in the veil of the Temple resides, inextricably linked to my grattage technique.”
Earthly and heavenly Jerusalem
His artistic journey, he explained, is centered on the Duc in Altum (“Cast out into the deep”) incident on the Sea of Galilee recorded in Luke 5, “which invites us to set sail and cast the nets.”
But the focus of Guida’s artistic vision lies farther south, in Jerusalem – both its worldly and otherworldly aspects.
A “spiritual artist” is needed, said Guida, to draw a picture of the heavenly Jerusalem that cannot be seen with the eyes.
Grattage is his primary tool to accomplish this task. He is also noted for his use of frottage, a surrealist method of rubbing a textured surface using a pencil or other drawing material.
“The contemplation of the earthly Jerusalem, on the [seam] between the lower and upper worlds, led me to the apotheosis of the vision of St. John the Evangelist, described in the Apocalypse: ‘Splendid as a most precious gem, as a crystalline jasper stone.’
“Ezekiel’s vision of the Merkava [the throne of God] concerns the spiritual part inherent in the predominant cerulean blue color of my works,” he explained.
Guida’s works have been published in newspapers and magazines internationally. He is cited in encyclopedias, including La Treccani, the Italian encyclopedia of science, letters and arts; the German encyclopedia Deutsche Biographie; Encyklopedia PWN of Poland; Nationalencyklopedin in Sweden; and the Union List of Artist Names of the Getty Institute in Los Angeles.
And in the holy city of Jerusalem, which provides so much of this Italian artist’s inspiration, the National Library of Israel has preserved his volumes on the history and phenomenology of grattage. His 2015 work Apotheosis, possibly his most famous piece, is the library’s exemplar of the grattage technique.
“Grattage helps us penetrate the ‘skin’ of painting, to the bottom of its entrails, and, in the luminous fragmentation of color, captures its intimate essence,” he said.
“The artist becomes the ‘high priest,’ who can enter the inaccessible place of the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shechinah, God’s presence, appeared.”
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
