Untitled (design for stained glass window)
Artist name
Artist year born
1902
Artist year deceased
1985
Artwork make date
1960
Artwork material
gouache
paper
paper
Artwork dimensions
height: 91cm
width: 72cm
width: 72cm
Artwork type (categories)
Painting
Accession method
Donated by María Freire 1998
Accession number
12-1998
Label text
Costigliolo travelled through Europe between 1957 and 1959, meeting with artists engaged in the tradition of both Russian Constructivism and De Stijl. During this time he took particular inspiration from medieval stained glass in church windows in France. Untitled (design for stained glass window) shows a design proposal for a glass window. Costigliolo emphasises the intense experience of sunlight passing through the French stained glass by juxtaposing complementary colours. The black lines around the coloured glass also refer to the lead frames that hold stained glass in place; while the black mass of the background suggests a stained glass window viewed from the dim interior of a church. Costigliolo also created and exhibited a number of large scale paintings using this iconography of intensely depicted colour blocks and relationships against a deep black background. Over the following decades Costigliolo's iconography became increasingly geometric. The inspiration drawn from the French stained glass remained with him, although the coloured forms moving over the dark void gradually became inverted to depict black shapes moving in brightly coloured space.
Rebecca Wills
Rebecca Wills
Last updated date
2008