The painting “Jeux d'air,” created in 1962, marks the pinnacle of Piero Dorazio’s famous “Reticoli” or grid paintings (1958–1963), a series of works that ranks among the most influential contributions to postwar abstraction in Europe. Dorazio built the composition from a dense network of linear brushstrokes that slightly vary in angle, thickness, and transparency. These subtle nuances breathe life into the entire pictorial space: a visual impression of depth and constant vibration emerges where the lines intersect and overlap. As the eye wanders across the surface, the colors seem to come forth, recede, and merge. The painting comes alive, as it constantly changes shape in the very act of viewing.


Architecture, Space, and Color

This dynamic of perception is central to Dorazio’s work. The pictorial surface never appears static; it is constantly refreshed through the active experience of viewing. Dorazio’s distinctive approach to the canvas is significantly shaped by his studies in architecture at the University of Rome in the mid-1940s. This background explains his enduring fascination with supporting structures, spatial dynamics, and the way light animates an environment. Dorazio does not conceive of space as a void that must be filled, but as a fabric that takes shape through structural rhythm and chromatic energy. He writes: “I believe that one cannot imagine the relationship between humans and space—neither visually nor conceptually—without color—but one can do so through painting.” (Piero Dorazio, quoted in: Exhibition catalog “Piero Dorazio,” Galerie im Erker, St. Gallen 1966, p. 21). In the “Reticoli”, this architectural impulse is directly transferred to the two-dimensional pictorial surface. The linear grid does not serve as a rigid framework, but as an open, modulating light lattice in which space is measured, constructed, and made perceptible through the interplay of colors.


Transatlantic Dialogue

Dorazio’s artistic journey was also shaped by the atmosphere of reconstruction following World War II. In 1947, he traveled to Paris to study the historical avant-garde at the École des Beaux-Arts, and that same year he co-founded the group “Forma I” in Rome. Beginning in 1953, extended stays in New York brought him into direct contact with the American avant-garde, including Barnett Newman and Robert Motherwell. These encounters gave him a distinctly international perspective and anchored his work in the dialogue between European traditions of color and light and the aspirations of the new American painting. By the late 1950s, this exploration culminated in the “Reticoli”. While movements such as the European Informel and American Action Painting relied on thick layers of paint and gestural drama, Dorazio opted for clarity, structure, and visual discipline. Instead of applying paint in broad swaths or with dramatic gestures, he shaped it from hundreds of fine, intersecting lines. The result balances calculation and openness. The composition is organized with mathematical precision, yet the surface remains light, porous, and atmospheric.


The International Breakthrough

The year 1960 marked his international breakthrough. At the Venice Biennale, he exhibited his grid paintings in a highly acclaimed solo exhibition space. He was appointed to the University of Pennsylvania to establish its Graduate Painting Program, where he taught for nearly a decade. “Jeux d’air” was created during this fruitful transatlantic phase and exemplifies the broad interest in visual perception that characterized the 1960s. This interest peaked in 1965 with the groundbreaking exhibition “The Responsive Eye” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which also included works by Dorazio. “Jeux d’air” shows Dorazio at the height of his creative powers. The grid does not form a closed boundary, but rather an open field of light and air. Its measured rhythm guides the viewer’s gaze, while the iridescent, shimmering colors keep the picture plane in motion. Thus, the painting combines discipline, dynamism, and luminosity into a consummate visual whole. [KA]