We “modern” men, besieged by the unnaturally frenzied rhythms of the technological age, discover in the paintings of Gilberto Piccinini an almost primeval energy, that causes us to cast our minds back in time. This energy recalls those remote eras when immense forces were shaping our planet, filling it with water and life, and involves us in the eternal battle between the Oceans - in continual turbulence - and the dry land to which we cling, while still remaining fascinated by those deep, dark masses of water.

Observing this battle as depicted by Gilberto Piccinini reminds us of the verses of Job 38:8-11: “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?”.

In Gilberto Piccinini’s works, the protagonist becomes not only the waves of the Oceans - a difficult subject - which he portrays in all their power and fury, but also the majestic rock faces of the islands and continents, flayed by the elements. The dramatic atmosphere of these paintings derives as much from the force of the powers in play, as from the leaden skies charged with clouds and rain looming over the dark turbulence of the seas. Piccinini’s paintings draw the mind towards the southernmost seas, to Cape Horn or South Georgia. They enable us to visualize the stories narrated by Melville, Shackleton, Coloane and Sepùlveda, and to feel the sharp, cold bite of the frozen Antarctic winds on our own skin.

We as modern men need to make contact with the powerful wildness of nature in order to rediscover ourselves. May the pounding of our frenetic thoughts be overpowered by the choral concert of the sea’s waves, so brilliantly expressed by our friend Gilberto, whose greatest satisfaction, I am sure, is to touch the hearts of all sea lovers to their very depths.

Stefano Pucciarelli