Ph.D., Fine Art Galerie Curator Cal Poly University State
Enzo Santini is a wizard in the medieval as well as the modem sense of the word. He is an alchemist, a shaman, a native of Siena and a Catholic. Somewhere within his slightly-built frame is housed the power to evoke the mysticism of St. Catherine and the mystery of medieval Siena, the birthplace he shares with its beloved patron saint.
Among his earliest childhood memories is the stark horror he experienced when his own pious mother took him to see the relics of St. Catherine in San Domenico (the church in Siena which houses the Saint's head while her body remains in Rome). The severed head, venerated by thousands aver the centuries, made an indelible impression on the child Enzo, an impression which has taken powerful physical form some fifty years later in the paintings of Enzo Santini, the artist, the man. So powerful, so evocative of another time, yet simultaneously so contemporary are Santini's interpretations of the Saint that they have earned the attention of the National Study Centre on St. Catherine and deservedly so. In the newest publication of this Centre, Enzo Santini will be included as the first artist to render the venerated figure in contemporary, rather than traditional medieval style.
What is that intangible factor, that mysterious ability which enables some artists to transport us to another time and place, to open up a hitherto unexplored part of the human psyche? As we approach the end of a millenium which has brought Science, Art, Religion and Philosophy closer together in the search for understanding the human experience of Life, we turn increasingly toward specially gifted individuals like Enzo Santini. Enzo's gift lies not solely in the physical dexterity of the hands that produce these unique paintings, though that ability is both considerable and well respected. Rather, I believe that Enzo's greatest strength lies in his vision. The artist's vision is that intangible factor which enables him to simplify, to cut through to the purest essence of existence. It matters not whether the subject is the starlit cityscapes of medieval Siena or St. Catherine's mystical experience of the oneness of all life: the essence remains the same.
How does the artist embark on this daunting quest for the essential? In Enzo is serenelly consciuos of having received as a gift from nature a life lived in the dream of art. Despite the power very evident in his pieces, the sturm und drang of the German Expressionists or the vehement passions of the Abstract Expressionists have no place in Santini's cool, ethereal outpourings. Surrealism, Biomorphism...sometimes. Abject passion, never. Santini moves toward the essential by simplifying. He strips away the extraneous in search of the pertinent, the intrinsic. The sensuous elegance of a simple, sinuous curving line speaks volumes in the hands of Enzo Santini, while lesser lights are smothered in their own excesses. Through his meticulous eschewance of all unnecessary detail in his artistic expressions, Santini is somehow able to aid, even inspire the viewer to similarly sweep away much of the detritus of our daily conscious existence so that we too might come closer to the essential, to that light at the core of all being which St. Catherine in her ecstasies as God, at once the substance and the maker of all things.
I find that I am somewhat embarrassed to "wax almost poetic" aver the works of a mortal man. However, one has only to look upon the elegant simplicity of the quintessential statement made by “The Glance”, to stand exposed to the power of “The Game of the Celestial Spheres”, to feel the ineffable sweetness of Catherine's triumph in “Return from Avignon”, or to experience the fingers which turn into fishes, the elbows into spiraling snail shells in “Contemplation of the Cross” to understand the accuracy of this artist's assessments, the genius of his vision.
Enzo Santini is a wizard, an alchemist, a shaman.