Enrico Sirello, 1975 – Anisotropic Effects in Italian Abstract Painting, Arte Programmata Movement

Enrico Sirello, 1975 – Anisotropic Effects in Italian Abstract Painting, Arte Programmata Movement

This painting by Enrico Sirello (Livorno, 1930–2012), created in 1975, belongs to the mature phase of the artist’s research on anisotropic effects in abstract painting — a concept at the heart of his visual experiments of the 1970s.
Linked to the Italian Arte Programmata movement, Sirello explored how the act of seeing itself could become the true subject of art. His works stand at the crossroads between geometric abstraction, visual psychology, and the study of perception.

Executed in acrylic on panel (35 × 35 cm), the composition develops through precise black and white fields intersected by red linear axes. The balance of these elements produces a subtle visual instability, an optical tension that changes as the viewer’s gaze moves across the surface — the very phenomenon that Sirello defined as “anisotropic perception.”

For the artist, painting was not the representation of an object but the creation of an experience. He called these works “night observations,” visions emerging from “the darkness of the mind” during long moments of silent reflection. From these mental images, he constructed structures where thought, color, and rhythm coexist.

Through these investigations, Sirello translated the principles of Gestalt psychology into visual form, transforming the static image into an active field of perception. His approach unites scientific method and poetic intuition — a distinctive feature of Italian Arte Programmata in the 1960s and 1970s.

Condition: good original condition, stable surface, minor wear consistent with age.
Frame: original black wooden strip frame.

Biography
Enrico Sirello (1930–2012) was an Italian painter from Livorno whose work bridges art, science, and perception. He sought to understand how vision operates and how color, form, and rhythm can create movement on a static surface.

A central figure in the Arte Programmata movement, Sirello worked alongside Italian kinetic and geometric artists exploring optical effects and visual logic. In 1965 he participated in the exhibition Strutture Significanti with Baldi, Cannilla, Drei, Glattfelder, Guerrieri, Lazzari, Lorenzetti, Masi, Pace, and Pesciò, accompanied by essays by Giulio Carlo Argan, Germano Beringheli, and Emilio Garroni.

Throughout his career, Sirello remained faithful to one principle: that art is an instrument of perception, a way to make visible the invisible process of thought and vision.