Spatial Concept - End of God 空間概念　神の終焉　[Concetto Spaziale – Fine di Dio]

Fontana, with his many inventions and his manifesto, is the most influential figure in 20th-century Italian art after Futurism. In 1949, he started to produce works with holes and slits made directly on the canvas. The holes and slits make the viewer aware of the reverse side of the canvas and the space around it, and they not only stress the painting's existence within reality as an object but also convey the presence and energy of the artist as he made them with his hands. In the series "End of God" produced over 1963 and 1964, the works, including this particular piece, present an oval canvas painted in monochrome and trimmed at the edge with lines. Inside these lines, the canvas is covered with numerous holes of various sizes. The holes look as if they have been made at random, but actually they follow a rule and form what can be called constellations, creating, together with the oval shape of the canvas, an image like a star chart. The rule that governs the picture does not end inside the canvas, but is projected outward to the actual space surrounding the viewer, ultimately to be released into the infinite universe. While conventional painting presents a closed microcosmos or a world reigned by God, this painting proposes a communion with the universe with its infinite expanse outside the canvas, and focuses on the sense of space as perceived by a human being.