In Trecento, Andrea Mastrovito layers sheets of tissue paper, securing them with pins, as if embroidering a contemporary fresco that blends historical painting with the ephemeral nature of collage. The central figure, a mythical warrior with a spear and shield, emerges from a fiery red background, almost evoking battle, epic grandeur, and sacrifice.
The title ironically and poignantly references the film “300,” but also an entire cultural tradition: the 14th century as the age of Italian literature, Gothic painting, and the construction of identity. The inscription in the background—“Prepare for glory”—is at once a slogan, a promise, and a condemnation.
The technique, seemingly light and childlike, instead reveals a profound tension between heroism and simulacrum, between the construction of the collective imagination and its inevitable fragility. The collage thus becomes a poetic weapon: it deconstructs the epic to restore it to us as a plastic vision, suspended between myth and memory.
This work, now part of Stefano Rastrelli’s private collection, attests to the value of contemporary art capable of being at once playful and incisive, fragile and powerful, visually striking and conceptually layered.
(From Cervino 28 Art Studio official website)