The work of Albino Lucatello is rich in meaning and its significance in the context of art today should not be underestimated. Indeed, I believe that a critical analysis of the artist’s work may provide valuable insight into the current condition of art today.
The continuing process of alienation, witnessed in the visual arts in Europe over the course of the past eighty years, has been accompanied by a comparable shift in mainstream philosophical thought. Western culture has, during this time, moved towards a more idealistic approach in its vision of reality, and this departure, conscious or unconscious, has been manifested in a criticism of science (philosophy of contingency) and a consequently diminishing faith in the same (intuitionism, existentialism). In the visual arts, this trend has found expression in abstract (in the general sense of the term), and non–figurative art in which an art work is objectively devoid of meaning and yet acquires meaning by virtue of its existence.
It was the philosophers who first recognized that artistic creation could provide the means with which to obtain real truth, an absolute truth not attainable by means of mathematical or dialectical reasoning. The indisputable significance of artistic creation per se was thus confirmed and I would argue that this was historically indispensable to the dignity of artistic expression.
However, could artistic form, as a self-contained entity, a monad so to speak, have continued to shun for much longer the effectualness that life itself demands of art? This fracture of form, this disconnectedness of the art work itself, which Futurism persistently sought and found within dynamism, and Surrealism expressed through paradox, was to prove inevitable and also came to be realized in Art Informel. Yet, within Art Informel, non–form acquires no other meaning than that of non–form. Even when it breaks free from the confines of its closed form, it attains no other reality than infinity itself, evocative and transcendent.
Perhaps due to his personality or his social position Albino Lucatello has always rejected both abstract and non figurative perspectives, precisely because of their inherently idealistic character.
Abstract art, be it formal or informal, rejects a priori, the possibility of being able to understand the external world. In fact, it implicitly dismisses this notion as being prescriptive. Whereas realism is driven by this dialectical condition, intrinsic to the external world. And Lucatello is himself a realist. His art refuses to be bound by purely syntactic, formal interpretations. It is semantic, that is to say allusive, mimetic, always reminiscent of an object, and this object is matter itself. And it is for this reason that the painting of Lucatello can be distinguished from that of other types of semantic painting. Within automatism, for example, which regards a psychic intuition of the artist, and surrealism or neo-classicism, the objects represented, be they ideal or abstract, nonetheless have an explicit form.
Lucatello’s art is in this sense realist and presents itself as the reproduction of material objects.
Why then does it appear to differ so greatly in its structure from realist art, as commonly understood? Why does it dispense with the features of landscape and nature so characteristic of neo-realist art in the pictorial sense of the term?
Evidently what has changed within his art is not the art–artist–reality relationship, which has always been present and is indeed the source of his realism. What has changed is the object, and hence the very dimensions of objective reality.
Let us be frank here, while new realist painting certainly had the potential to unveil a new human dimension, it lacked the elements necessary to truly express the new dimensions of matter exposed by modern science.
There is a reason of course for this failure, but it is nonetheless a failure. Marxist aesthetics has always sought to validate art within the framework of historical materialism, rather than that of dialectical materialism, neglecting the fact however, that even if the past of man belongs to history, the present is firmly rooted in dialectics.
The relationship therefore between art and society supersedes that of art and matter, and in the context of cultural integration, also that of art and science. And since it is dialectics which prevails in the present, art is required to assume an educative role and to establish a dialectical relationship between structure and superstructure, rather than between man and nature. While I do not wish to dismiss the educative role of art, as it is certainly fundamental to human knowledge, it must be remembered that it is always the artistic moment that precedes the educational, and never vice–versa. Education is necessarily a means, and never an end. Pedagogy for example, is concerned with how to teach and not what, and decisions regarding educational content are the concern of other sciences – ethics, if we refer to education in general, and the various scientific disciplines which correspond to individual branches of learning.
Therefore, as art is the antecedent of the educational dynamic, education will, as we said earlier, always be a means and not an end. Consequently, art will always lead the way and never follow. I believe that Albino Lucatello is well aware of this. His work has never ceased to have an educative function and his commitment in this respect has never faltered. It is because of this, and the marked materialist quality of his painting, that the term realism can be applied to his work. He is focused on the aesthetic quality of his work, and from this its educational function will naturally follow. His poetic style demonstrates an in–depth exploration of materialism and an awareness of its dialectic.
And yet, there is a risk that this commitment, as manifested in his refusal to include representative objects in his painting, may produce the opposite effect to that intended and result in his art being considered banal, conventional and even rhetorical.
A new dimension to reality, that is a reality of new dimensions opened up before him. The Paesaggi del Delta (The Delta Landscapes) for example, all display an immense openness and have an intense cosmic feel to them. It is almost as if we are viewing the rounded, perspiring earth from above, from a victorious sputnik, let’s say. This curving earth, this curving sky, imbue his painting with a lyricism which offers a new perspective, in which space remains human, (for it is three–dimensional), and yet is suffused with a new intuitive poignancy. Such works demonstrate the artist’s scientific concern, his desire to relate to the macro cosmos and what is more, his obvious commitment to remaining faithful to the world around him.
In order to avoid appearing superficial, Lucatello takes his search for a more contemporary reality to even greater depths. His Nature Morte (“Still Lifes”) are a challenge to popular taste, which had abandoned this form of artistic expression, and prove that there is no such thing as poetical or unpoetical matter, there is only matter. There is only man and his relationship with the matter placed before him.

ranslated by Amanda M. Hunter