Ceramiche da rivestimento: seven figures across a grid

Critical Reading

The record for Ceramiche da rivestimento documents a panel commissioned in 1970 for the apartment building at Via Diaz 5 in Sassari and signed by Augusto Salvatore Oppo and Italo Motroni. An environmental photograph shows it among wood coverings and surfaces of passage, a condition essential to reading it. This is not a canvas hung against a neutral wall: the image is made of 104 tiles, eight across and thirteen high, intended to meet people moving through the space. White ground and regular joints hold together a composition populated by seven bird-like figures. The grid remains visible without breaking the silhouettes’ movement across it.

At upper left, a large green body supports a broad, rounded blue area. A darker, more compact head emerges towards the centre. Facing it is a pale-blue figure with an upright neck, small dark circles around its top and white marks on its breast. Its tail opens rightward as a geometric blue shape interrupted by three little green elements. These first two presences are not set out as isolated emblems: their masses extend over several tiles, approach each other and leave white areas and ochre nuances between. The relation between continuous profile and divided surface makes the panel’s designed scale immediately apparent.

The middle band shifts chromatic temperature. A yellow-and-black form curves leftwards, while another, thinner yellow presence occupies the centre. At right a large black body is crossed by a bright yellow area and ends in an almost rectangular tail. Some details suggest eyes, beaks and feathers; others remain decorative marks difficult to assign to precise anatomy. The composition does not seek zoological classification. It works with forms recognisable enough to recall lapwings or small hens, yet free enough to become chromatic rhythm. Figures alternate in size, tilt and density, preventing the grid from becoming a monotonous row of identical modules.

In the lower part, two lighter presences ease the middle band’s concentration. At left, a green-and-white outlined figure bends its neck over a dark body; at right a more evanescent silhouette remains, formed from very muted yellows and greys. Contrast between a recognisable animal and an almost dissolving trace changes the pace of looking. From top to bottom, strong colour gives way to more transparent presences. This is no narrative with beginning and end, but a modulation of visual intensity. A final white band, bearing signatures and date, gives the composition a pause before the physical limit of the covering.

Vertical and horizontal joints cut through every figure without interrupting its overall profile. A green curve may begin on one tile, change density on the next and resume beyond a dark line. The grid thus participates in reading, instead of being a mere building necessity. Soft patches do not fill every tile to its edge; often they leave white around the forms, so the support keeps room to breathe. Closer photographs reveal changes in transparency and small internal patterns. These are not ornaments added to a completed drawing: they help the image pass from the scale of one module to that of the whole wall.

The record gives tiles of 19 × 19 cm and a calculated extent of 152 × 247 cm, excluding joints. It lists the material as glass or ceramic, while its description speaks of glass-ceramic; the catalogue wording therefore retains a caution about technical classification. The photographed signature carries both names, A. Oppo and I. Motroni, followed by 1970. Ceramiche da rivestimento is an Archive designation, not an attested artist-given title. These facts prevent two simplifications: attributing the work to Oppo alone and treating the panel as an easel image. Collaboration, module and architectural placement together establish its identity.

Critical Aspects

A comparison of animal subject with Pesce volante reveals two ways of handling living forms in the corpus. The fish, of undocumented date, concentrates blue, black and warm reflections in one mass against a pale-blue ground; the Via Diaz panel distributes bird-like figures across a white grid and changes colour from band to band. The likeness does not concern one species or technique. It lies in the freedom with which an animal form becomes a means to organise colour areas, outlines and movement. Where Pesce volante compresses energy into one body, Oppo and Motroni build a choral rhythm that must work at the distance of people passing by.

Mosaico di luce, dated 1984, offers a comparison between module and image. Its inner field is divided into triangles and quadrilaterals inside a painted frame; in Ceramiche da rivestimento the grid is not merely represented, for it corresponds to physical divisions between tiles. The 1970 panel also lets animal profiles cross several modules, while the 1984 composition entrusts much of its rhythm to geometric repetition. These are not phases of one project. Juxtaposition makes visible a recurring question in Oppo’s practice: how to order a divided surface without losing the vitality of its internal colour differences.

The extended biography documents Oppo’s relation to applied arts, graphics and design during the 1960s and 1970s. This 1970 panel makes that opening concrete in an inhabited place, with an identifiable commission and joint signature. Available evidence does not let us separate Oppo’s execution from Motroni’s or reconstruct the full production process. It is sounder to analyse their shared result and its presence in space. The environmental photograph shows the coloured surface in dialogue with a wooden surround and the entrance hall; it does not prove how the panel looked under light at installation or in other lighting conditions.

References to coloured lapwings and small hens place the image near a Sardinian decorative vocabulary, but these figures are not simply quotations from a fixed motif. Every body changes scale, colour and degree of recognisability. The panel thus avoids looking like one pattern mechanically repeated over 104 tiles. Even “ceramics” in the Archive title must be read beside the record’s caution about material. The photograph shows a glossy, softly shaded modular surface but cannot establish the exact composition or firing of every tile. Critically, the relation between recognisable animals and autonomous marks, architectural use and formal inquiry is what matters.

Evaluation

The panel’s chief quality is its use of a strict grid without subordinating figures to repetition. From a distance, seven presences can be distinguished across three bands, with blues and greens above, yellows and blacks in the middle, and lighter tones below. Closer in, the joints become legible and show how tail or neck crosses several units. The work has two complementary visual scales: the image welcoming someone entering and its construction revealed to someone who stops. That double level particularly suits a covering intended to be encountered repeatedly in ordinary building life.

Differences among the whites also work well. Some tiles remain almost empty, others are veiled with grey, yellow or green; the ground therefore does not seem dead behind the animals. Soft transitions bridge dark forms and pale margins, while small internal marks hold attention in denser places. The upper pale-blue figure and middle black one are strong in scale and colour, yet do not overwhelm lighter presences. The panel balances emblem and variation. No one silhouette has to sustain the whole image: movement arises from their succession and their different strength against the grid.

Pesce volante shows how an animal figure can become a compact nucleus of colour; Mosaico di luce shows another way to order a divided surface. In the Via Diaz panel these possibilities meet within a particular architectural setting. Forms are broad enough to cross tile boundaries, but their placement never conceals the supporting structure. The joint signature with Motroni is essential to assessment: success belongs to the common work, not a hypothetical portion attributable to either individual. The overall effect is decorative and designed at once, with a legibility that survives even in the environmental photograph.

Within Augusto Oppo’s corpus, Ceramiche da rivestimento is unusually concrete evidence of art extending into shared space. Commission, place, date, module count and double signature are recorded; wording about material preserves technical caution. The photographs allow assessment of grid against seven figures, a passage from initial blue and green to central yellows, and diminished intensity in the lower band. The panel convinces because modular constraint becomes a compositional resource. It neither erases the architecture that supports it nor becomes mere wall finish: it proposes repeated encounters of colour, form and daily passage.