Cross and Plane to Space - Myriam Thyes

The title refers to Kandinsky’s book ‘Point and Line to Plane’ – here to the historic antipodes illusionism and constructivist art. In this video, the illusionistic ceiling fresco ‚Triumph of St. Ignatius of Loyola’ (1685) by Andrea Pozzo meets compositions with crosses (1932) by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. While the hierarchic, centralist painting in the Jesuit church Sant’Ignazio glorifies the holy lord, Taeuber-Arp created multifocal, plane compositions of non-figurative shapes. The only thing the baroque and the modern artworks have in common, is the sign of the cross. In the animation, the oppositional artistic concepts start a competitive dialog, they influence and penetrate each other. Given the current victory of virtual worlds, this animation reflects the history of illusionism and its assumed overcoming in modernity.

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“Fantastic abstract constructivist short film, with influences from the pictorial avant-gardes that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century such as Piet Mondrian, Sophie Taeuber or Vasili Kandinsky. Geometric drifts and spiritual constructions on the ceiling fresco Triumph of St. Ignatius of Loyola create an ‘ars combinatoria’ of unusual beauty. It is a short film that exudes freedom, poetry and free associations with cinematographic antecedents of experimental cinema such as Walter Ruttman or Hans Richter.”
Jury of Wallachia International Film Festival 2020, Silviu Bratosin, Lorena Manolica, Matei-Alexandru Mocanu, Ionut Povara, Tudor Voican