Woodcut on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
High Fever
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesco-clemente-917" aria-label="More by Francesco Clemente" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Francesco Clemente</a>
Purchased 1983
birth
birth to death
body
hand
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
Magrelli, Valerio
people
sex
sex and relationships
sexual organs
society
paper print woodcut
[no title]
image: 536 × 410 mm
Purchased 1983
<p>Eight woodcuts with title page and tailpiece on handmade paper, printed by François Lafranca, Lugano, Switzerland, published by Peter Blum, New York and Zurich in an edition of 35
<br/>Each inscribed ‘Francesco Clemente’ b.r. and ‘5/35’, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07848" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07848</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07838" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07838</span></a> not inscribed
<br/>Purchased from Peter Blum Editions (Grant-in-Aid) 1983
<br/>
<br/><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07832" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07832</span></a> [from] <b>High Fever</b> 1982 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07830" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07830</span></a>-<span>P07838</span>; <span>P07848</span>; complete]
<br/>Woodcut 21 1/8 × 16 1/8 (536 × 410) on paper 27 × 21 1/4 (686 × 540)
<br/>
<br/>Clemente titled this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portfolio" title="Glossary definition for 'Portfolio'"><span>portfolio</span></a> in Italian, ‘Febbre Alta’. It is accompanied by a booklet with a poem by Valerio Magrelli which the artist translates into English as follows:
<br/></p>
<p>I want one day
<br/>to turn into marble
<br/>without any nerves
<br/>or tendons or veins.
<br/>Dry stone only,
<br/>alive, profound and white,
<br/>keeping still and relying
<br/>only on itself</p>
<p>
<br/>Though Clemente resists explaining his imagery, preferring to assert the intuitive nature of his work, ‘High Fever’ is said to be concerned with the birth of his daughter. The poem may therefore refer to his crying out against the anguish of childbirth. There is no <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/narrative" title="Glossary definition for 'Narrative'"><span>narrative</span></a> but from the simple heart, symbol of declared love with his and his wife's initials, on the title page to the circular tailpiece the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> are a single serial work, the order of which is established not by numbering but by the order of illustrations in the accompanying booklet. The heavy sheets of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>, made at the Lafranca studio, hold very strong impressions from the grainy woodblocks, Clemente's deep gouges and cut lines producing very clear white against a variety of blacks from sooty (<span>P07848</span>, <span>P07830</span>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07831" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07831</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07834" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07834</span></a>) to prussian blue - (<span>P07832</span>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07835" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07835</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07837" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07837</span></a>, <span>P07838</span>) or alizarin crimson - (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07833" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07833</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clemente-no-title-p07836" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07836</span></a>) tinged black. The prints have a powerful material character, almost like paper <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculpture</span></a>, unlike his conventional prints but related to his handmade books. The blocks have a satiny grain, the natural pattern of which lies behind the cut image: ‘The lines help avoid having the figures fall into emptiness. It is possible to follow the lines, and support is provided by the material of the structure of the wood. Whereas this question of support never occurs in works by American artists, who simply circumvent it, the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/expressionism" title="Glossary definition for 'Expressionism'"><span>German Expressionists</span></a> were from an early period fully aware of this issue...’ (the artist, quoted in B. Curiger, Looks et Tenebrae, New York and Zurich 1984, p.158). Clemente has worked in Italy, America and India and the environment in which a particular work is made has always been an important factor in its evolution. Curiger refers to the disquieting effect of Switzerland's nordic landscape and Clemente's idea of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/woodcut" title="Glossary definition for 'Woodcut'"><span>woodcut</span></a> as a nordic <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>medium</span></a>,... ‘Northern in the sense that light must be created from darkness’ (p.157). In these prints, as in much of Clemente's work, he uses sexual imagery and symbols as they are used in Tantra, that is as a universal language referring to ultimate enlightenment, but also as direct autobiographical references both physical and spiritual. It is not Tantra as a religion that interests him, however, but its ability to express thought and ideas in its own visual language.
<br/>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions</i>, London 1986
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-13T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
birth birth to death body hand literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) Magrelli, Valerio people sex sex and relationships sexual organs society