La Liberazione
1959
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View on museum website →Medium
mixed media on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 125 x 170 cm (49 3/16 x 66 15/16 in.) framed: 128.6 x 173.7 x 3.2 cm (50 5/8 x 68 3/8 x 1 1/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ivan Novelli
Accession Number
1996.106.1
Art Historical Context
Gastone Novelli's *La Liberazione* ( Liberation), created in 1959, the vibrant experimentation of post-war Italian art. This large-scale mixed media on canvas (125 x 170 cm) reflects Novelli's distinctive style, blending gestural abstraction with enigmatic signs and fragmented figures. Working in the wake of World War II, Novelli—part of Italy's avant-garde scene influenced by existentialism and Art Informel—developed a visual language of cryptic symbols that evoke personal and collective freedom, perfectly suiting the title's theme of emancipation amid Europe's cultural rebirth. The use of m...