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If consistency in research were a value to be considered above all others in determining the importance and success of an artist, then Arturo Mazzola should be placed at the very peak of the artistic panorama of his generation. He never strayed from a path which led straight to the last phase of his rarefied images. And yet he begins far off, reaching the pinnacle of his artisitic journey in expressionistic abstraction, to be included therefore among the avantgarde of Milanese art of the post-war period: a choice that from the outset indicates single-mindedness, absolute independence and that élite spirit which, along with the innate finesse of his painting, defines the lonely and highly introverted path his search would take. Little by little, Mazzola takes the substance out of colour, removing the emotions from the gesture of his painting until his images are reduced to the chilling dimension of silence and introspective contemplation and become exact theorems of the irrational. These are the acutely personal visions for which the artist paid such a high price in terms of participation as to make them unique.

The impression one gets from the clear-cut surfaces of Mazzola's paintings is of emotion accurately calculated.

In the masterly history of Arturo Mazzola, what the critics note assiduously is the poetic thread that links all his experiences from the very start. Already in 1947 Osvaldo Patani can speak of "a life lived internally", and all who comment touch on the melancholy of his beloved Lombard landscapes, inspired by the docks of the Naviglio, the small stations of the Milanese hinterland, the circuses in the suburbs with their local inhabitants, the scenes of motherhood and the figures of weary, silent women who repeat their daily gestures with resignation.

Less than twenty years later, the critic Moises Becerra can declare with certainty that we are dealing with "a surrealist poet" whose "journey expresses not only the personal lyricism of a prisoner but the intrinsic truth of human suffering".

And Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco puts it well when, commenting on one of Mazzola's exhibitions in Rome, he says "it is the subtle and penetrating sign which unifies these assorted exhibits. In the end Mazzola's is not even a narration but a repertory, materials which serve as narration, a very rich inventory. And this is perhaps the most interesting side: everyone can reconstruct the story as he wishes, as Mazzola cautiously suggests an action which is repeated in a different way for each spectator, thus becoming the filologist who concentrates on signs rather than words".

At this point we have to read a rare autobiographical note in which the artist attempts to clarify the sense of his search.

"To understand and fully grasp the meaning of my painting, you have to deepen your direct knowledge of life in its true material and spiritual essence. It is not simply a search to describe a daily chronicle which exalts and overwhelms with cruel and decadent rhetoric, you must also open your mind to a new inner world which your imagination manifests visually in all its infinite forms with the purest and highest quality: echoes of spiritual freedom. This concept, which evolved slowly in my sub-conscious, enriched my activity as a painter.