REFLECTIONS ON THE ART OF PAINTING "We must remember that a painting, as Maurice Denis said, before being a landscape, a woman or any episode, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors gathered in a certain order. The idea that the painter has in his mind is translated into plastic, material, colored equivalents. The emotions and sensations, which emerge in him through the chosen subject, must be interpreted and transferred to the canvas in such a way as to be immediately recognized by those who stand in front of that painting for the first time, but also and above all in such a way as to be appreciated over time by anyone who observes the canvas several times. A painting can be compared to a pulsar: each time it sends back the same "original" signal. It is as if we had fixed in space-time a perception defined in its temporal coordinates. A still window with a moving outline. A pigment resistant to the fluidity of the image. A work can present defects in the technique, in the search for the atmosphere that hovers around the subject, it can be excessive in brightness, it can abound in chromaticism or be monotonous, but it should always capture the moment and express the strength contained in that event. In short, it is necessary to seize the moment. The object-space relationship occupies a prominent place in the representation of reality, just as the subject places itself unequivocally in relation to the environment. The concept of symbiosis is extremely appropriate. The man-environment relationship is an integral part of life, the artist-nature relationship is an expression of it, one of many. Therefore, art could be defined as "a man added to nature", an integral part of a whole. A painting is like a concert, a first work, a harmonious whole. Nothing is out of place, the music is in tune with our thoughts, it reaches directly to our deepest chords and excites us, it enthralls us with the elegance of the movements, the allegro con brio, the andante, the maestoso, but also with the intimacy that the vision of the work arouses in us. The painting is the transposition of a real or imaginary place, it is a story written on the canvas and just as calligraphy is immediately recognizable and attributable to a single person, so a work of art, without any interpretation or translation, is instantly readable and attributable to a single and unique artist." Silvano Crespi