Transavanguardia, or when painting took a breath again

A few streets away, in an apartment whose walls are covered with Indian miniatures and erotic sketches, Francesco Clemente finishes a series of fourteen watercolors. They depict the Stations of the Cross, but the faces are those of Hindu gods, the landscapes those of his dreams. When he sends them to New York, Andy Warhol, fascinated, replies: "Your work is like a prayer, but I don’t know to which god."

Between these two men, between these two canvases, a revolution is underway. It will be called Transavanguardia, and it will bring painting back to the center of the artistic debate after a decade of conceptual art’s unchallenged reign. But beware: this is not a simple return to the past. It is a wild rebirth, a brushstroke laden with history, desire, and biting irony.

01The manifesto that blew up the dogmas

It all begins with a text. In 1979, critic Achille Bonito Oliva publishes an essay in Flash Art with a provocative title: "La Transavanguardia italiana." The word is out. "Trans-avant-garde"—a term that sounds like treason to the guardians of conceptual orthodoxy. For Oliva, this is not just a movement but a "cultural migration," a shift from art as ideology to art as sensory and emotional experience.

The 1970s had been a decade of asceticism: art had to be poor (Arte Povera), immaterial (the "dematerialization of art"), or purely intellectual (conceptual art). Painting? A bourgeois, suspect medium. And now five artists—Chia, Clemente, Cucchi, De Maria, and Paladino—dare to put canvas and brush back at the center of the game. Worse still, they do it with an almost insolent joy, blending mythology, autobiography, and historical references into a volatile cocktail.

The reaction is swift. Purists cry sacrilege. "It’s just decoration!" sneers an American critic. "A step backward!" adds another. But the public is won over. In 1980, the Venice Biennale dedicates a section to the movement with Aperto ’80, an exhibition that sparks outrage. Two years later, MoMA organizes Transavanguardia Italia/America, and suddenly, the whole world is talking about these Italians who paint as if conceptual art had never existed.

02Sandro Chia: the body as a battleground

If you step into Sandro Chia’s studio in the 1980s, you’re immediately struck by the smell. Linseed oil, of course, but also sweat, strong coffee, and sometimes red wine spilled on sketches. Chia works like a blacksmith, standing before monumental canvases, brush in hand like a sword. His figures—naked, overly muscular men carrying jars or pushing boulders—seem plucked from a Renaissance dream, warped by a funhouse mirror.

Take Water Bearer (1981), one of his most famous works. The central figure, a colossus with almost cartoonish proportions, carries a water jar so large it threatens to crush him. His face is both determined and resigned, as if he knows his effort is futile. "It’s Sisyphus, but more ridiculous," Chia says with a smile. "Because in life, we’re all a little like water bearers. We toil, we sweat, and in the end, we wonder why."

What stands out in Chia’s paintings is their physicality. The paint is thick, almost sculptural, with impasto that catches the light like reliefs. The colors—ochres, blood reds, deep blues—recall the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, but applied with an almost expressionist urgency. "I want the viewer to feel the artist’s hand," he says. "Not like in those conceptual paintings where it looks like a machine did everything."

And then there’s the humor. Chia often depicts himself in his works, but always as an ironic observer, slightly removed. In The Painter and His Model (1982), he paints himself painting… a woman who watches him with a knowing smile. "It’s a joke about the myth of the genius artist," he admits. "I’m just a guy who likes pretty colors and a little silly storytelling."

03Francesco Clemente: wandering as a method

If Chia is a blacksmith, Francesco Clemente is an alchemist. His studio resembles a cabinet of curiosities: travel notebooks filled with erotic drawings, framed Indian miniatures, astrology books open to pages of hermetic symbols. "I don’t believe in fixed studios," he says. "An artist should be a nomad, even when sitting still."

Born in Naples in 1952, Clemente grew up in a city where the sacred and the profane intertwine at every corner. Baroque churches stand beside dark alleys, Madonnas weep blood tears, and saints’ bodies are displayed like relics. This atmosphere of mysticism and sensuality permeates his entire body of work. "In Naples, death and desire are always present," he explains. "You can’t paint as if you were in Zurich."

His early works in the 1970s are abstract, almost minimalist. But after a trip to India in 1973, everything changes. He discovers Rajput miniatures, those delicate paintings where gods and lovers merge in dreamlike landscapes. "In India, I understood that art wasn’t about style, but ritual," he recalls. "A miniature is a prayer. A fresco is an offering."

Back in Italy, he embarks on series that blend Christian and Hindu symbols. The Fourteen Stations (1981-82) is a masterpiece of this period: fourteen watercolors depicting the Passion of Christ, but with the faces of Shiva or Kali, and landscapes evoking Jerusalem as much as the ghats of the Ganges. "I didn’t want to shock," he says. "I wanted to show that all spiritualities are alike, because they speak of the same things: fear, desire, death."

His style is instantly recognizable: vibrant, almost fluorescent colors, androgynous bodies in languid poses, eyes that seem to follow you like those of Byzantine icons. "I paint as one dreams," he explains. "Forms must be fluid, because life is fluid."

04New York, or the art of becoming a star

In 1980, Clemente and Chia arrive in New York. The city is then the center of the art world, but also a wasteland: galleries are closing, collectors are scarce, and conceptual art, after dominating the previous decade, seems exhausted. "People were hungry for something tangible," recalls Mary Boone, the gallerist who would catapult the two Italians to stardom.

At Boone’s gallery, Chia’s and Clemente’s canvases hang alongside those of Julian Schnabel and David Salle. The openings are social events, packed with Warhol, Basquiat, and a crowd of collectors eager for novelty. "It was the time when art became a luxury product," a critic notes. "And the Italians had the right product: painting, but with a touch of exoticism."

Clemente, in particular, fascinates. His blend of Eastern mysticism and Western eroticism seduces a New York scene in search of spirituality after the excesses of the 1970s. Warhol, ever on the lookout for talent, invites him to collaborate. Together, they create a series of paintings where Warhol’s faces—those pop icons—merge with Clemente’s alchemical symbols. "Andy liked the idea that art could be both sacred and commercial," Clemente explains. "Me too, actually."

Chia, meanwhile, keeps a lower profile. "I’ve never liked socializing," he admits. But his paintings, with their heroic figures and flamboyant colors, become must-haves for collectors. In 1982, MoMA acquires Water Bearer. "It was the consecration," a curator recalls. "But also the beginning of the end. After that, everyone wanted a piece of the pie."

05The market, that two-headed monster

Transavanguardia was a movement born of urgency, but it would burn out in excess. In the early 1980s, prices soared. Water Bearer sold for $1.5 million in 1989—a record for a contemporary Italian artist. Galleries fought to represent Chia and Clemente. Collectors like tycoon Peter Brant bought paintings like stocks.

But this frenzy came at a cost. "Art became a currency," laments Bonito Oliva. "No one talked about painting anymore, just about prices and speculation." In 1987, the stock market crash hit the art market hard. Prices collapsed. Galleries closed. "It was like someone turned out the lights all at once," a dealer remembers.

For Clemente, this period was difficult. "I had to sell paintings to pay rent," he admits. Chia, meanwhile, retreated to Tuscany, where he continued to paint, far from the New York hustle. "I never liked the idea of being a brand," he says. "I’m a painter. Period."

06The legacy: when the past becomes the future

Thirty years later, what remains of Transavanguardia? A great deal, in fact. Without it, the return of painting in the 1990s—with artists like Peter Doig or Marlene Dumas—would not have been possible. Without it, German Neo Rauch, with his narrative paintings and historical references, would not exist. And without it, the Zombie Formalism movement of the 2010s—this resurgence of abstract painting, often devoid of meaning—might never have emerged.

But the deepest legacy of Transavanguardia is perhaps this idea that art can be both serious and playful, learned and sensual, political and intimate. Chia and Clemente proved that a canvas could tell a story without becoming illustration, that it could be beautiful without being decorative, and that it could speak of the world without taking itself too seriously.

Today, when you walk into a gallery and come across a painting with vibrant colors, expressive figures, or mysterious symbols, look closely. There’s a good chance you’re gazing at the heir of a movement that once dared to say: "Enough with concepts. Long live painting."