Achille Perilli

Achille Perilli was an Italian painter and one of the central figures of post-war Italian abstraction. Born in Rome in 1927 and active across painting, publishing, theatre, and experimental artistic research, Perilli developed a distinctive visual language in which geometry abandons rational order and becomes unstable, imaginative, and deliberately contradictory.

In 1947, Perilli was among the founders of Forma 1, together with Carla Accardi, Ugo Attardi, Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Antonio Sanfilippo, and Giulio Turcato. The group defended abstraction at a moment when Italian art was deeply divided between realism and non-figurative experimentation. Its members famously defined themselves as both formalists and Marxists, asserting the autonomy of artistic form while remaining engaged with contemporary political culture.

After participating in the Movimento Arte Concreta (MAC), Perilli increasingly moved beyond conventional geometric abstraction. His compositions became populated by impossible structures, fragmented architectures, distorted polygons, and spatial constructions that appear coherent at first glance but resist any stable perspective.

This investigation led to one of the defining concepts of his practice: the irrazionale geometrico, or “irrational geometric.” Instead of using geometry to impose order, Perilli transformed it into a system capable of generating ambiguity, contradiction, and imaginative instability. Shapes fold, overlap, rotate, and occupy impossible spaces, creating visual environments governed by their own internal logic.

In 1971 he formulated the Manifesto della Folle Immagine nello Spazio Immaginario, further developing his rejection of measurable and rational space. During the following decade, his theoretical research culminated in the Teoria dell’irrazionale geometrico, published in 1982. Painting became a territory in which apparently rigorous forms could produce paradox rather than certainty.

Perilli was also deeply involved in Italy’s experimental cultural scene. With Gastone Novelli he directed the magazine L’esperienza moderna, and in 1964 he participated in the creation of Grammatica. His activities extended to theatre, scenography, writing, and interdisciplinary experimentation, reflecting his interest in dismantling the boundaries between established artistic languages.

Within the history of contemporary Italian art, Achille Perilli represents an important connection between post-war abstraction, Forma 1, geometric experimentation, and the conceptual transformation of pictorial space. His work demonstrates how abstraction can move beyond order and rationality to become a language of imagination, uncertainty, and continuous visual invention.