museologist and art historian
Renato Li Vigni beyond the light
Light is life, knowledge, energy in its pure state, universal beauty, structural substance, symbolic definition, metaphorical suggestion, conceptual intent, natural propulsion, existential sustenance—but also purity of the soul and a quest for something that cannot be explained by reason.
Renato Li Vigni is a profound and sensitive artist who has always shown keen concern for social, everyday and theological issues. As a witness to his own time, the Sicilian painter never misses a chance to put himself fully on the line, probing the historical moment in which he lives and—through his chosen medium—offering pictorial intuitions that both move us and prompt reflection. His canvases might be called hymns to light and matter: chromatic impressions that, through their luminescence, seek a relationship with the immaterial and the infinite. In many of his works light actually breaks matter apart, urging the viewer’s perceptual system on a voyage that reaches far beyond surface appearance.
The idea of light as a principle of knowledge was already under discussion in ancient philosophy. Aristotle ascribed to it the character of a fifth element—composed of a subtle, fluid substance that surrounds and completes the four primordial elements (water, air, fire and earth). Plato, by contrast, viewed light as the manifestation of the divine, opening itself to nature and to humankind. Li Vigni is fully aware of the importance of this absolute light, which can serve as a touchstone for new generations seeking their spiritual path. In an ever-more chaotic society, where values risk being eclipsed by an increasingly metaphysical attitude, the painter finds inspiration to search for a reassuring centre—something that helps us grasp life’s meaning and spurs us not to be lost in the banality and approximation of shadow.
The result is work of great gestural power in which light—sometimes white and fluidly pristine, at other times heavier, coloured, magmatic—appears as something both magical and mystical. Within a controlled gestural informality he uses the entire surface of the canvas-palimpsest to form provisional shapes that seem propelled by a slow, steady centripetal motion. The Christian contrast between light and darkness in the Genesis story is applied to Jesus—“light-bearer,” disperser of the shadows of falsehood and sin, revealing to humanity the Gospel truth, the right road to follow. For Li Vigni, light signifies understanding—the wisdom of an individual who, through special perceptive faculties granted by God in prayer, shares and lives his inner life with himself and with others. Only those who open themselves to primordial emotions and the purity of passion can let themselves be guided by light into the beyond of universal awareness.
In the Old Testament, light is true life, salvation and happiness bestowed by God. All may enter into this divine light, provided they respect the law and word of the Almighty who illuminates the path. In many of his works Li Vigni pursues that otherworldly glow, aware that the Messiah is not merely a bringer of light but the very source of eternal brightness. The painter gravitates toward a luminescence at once explosive and reassuring, exuberant yet delicate, overwhelming yet consonant—seeking to overcome the mental barrier that blinds humankind to heavenly truth. Matter, colour, surface and light become the elements of an inner narrative that finds in spirituality and faith the courage to open itself to life: mysteries of knowledge and certainties of glimmering insight that every person can discover within.
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