Piero della Francesca, Nativity, 1460-1475 (detail) In 1925 Franz Roh (1890-1965) theorized Magic Realism (Nach-Expressionismus – magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäisches Malerei, Leipzig, Klinkhardt & Biermann), stating that painting had the task of opposing the vague and demonic flow of existence. The pictorial representation therefore had to crystallize the volumes, making them solid, immutable and timeless. The works belonging to Magic Realism, and to the previous pictorial experiences that generated it (Metaphysics in particular), owe that sense of […]
