The artist's favourite work
Little Beating Hearts
Cuoricini che battono (original Italian title)
The work Antonio Di Cristofaro holds dearest: a line of yellow drops crosses the darkness, turning on itself like a heartbeat, until it reaches a small heart of light.
- Artist
- Antonio Di Cristofaro
- Collection
- Spirals
- Medium
- Acrylic on canvas
- Availability
- Available for purchase
Limited edition
Canvas prints
Faithful reproductions of the work on canvas, numbered and hand-signed by the artist, with certificate. The edition is closed: once sold out, it will never be reprinted.
The format follows the proportions of the original. Price and delivery times on request; worldwide shipping.
Of all the works in the catalogue, this is the one Antonio Di Cristofaro cares about most. It is no coincidence that it bears the tenderest title: Cuoricini che battono, “little beating hearts”.
The heart at the centre
On a dark, deep, almost nocturnal ground, a single yellow line makes a long journey. It starts at the edge, follows the perimeter of the canvas, then begins to tighten, ring after ring, until it reaches the centre: a small luminous shape in the form of a heart.
The line is never continuous. It is made of drops, small beads of colour lined up one after another like pulses. Seen this way, the whole spiral becomes a heartbeat spreading out from the centre — or one that, from the outside, is looking for its way home.
The womb and life
The poem Antonio wrote for this work reveals its deepest meaning. The dark ground is “the dark womb of nascent time”; the small yellow shape at the centre is a heart lighting up, a foetus resting “in the sincere cosmos”. The golden spirals around it are life beginning to trace its path.
It is a painting about birth, about the first heartbeat, about the moment when a spark lights up in the dark.
Darkness and light
The ground is not a flat black. Up close you discover blues, purples and browns emerging beneath the surface, as if the darkness were made of many withheld colours. On it, yellow is life itself: warm, stubborn, never extinguished. A thin white margin left around the paint frames the darkness and makes it float, like a window open onto the night.
Why it is the artist’s favourite
Some paintings are painted, others are carried within. Little Beating Hearts belongs to the second kind: a work about the origin of life, about affection and tenderness, about what keeps beating even in the darkest moments. Painting and poem were born together and are meant to be seen and read together.
The poem · original Italian
Cuoricini che battono
Nel ventre oscuro del tempo nascente, un cuore si accende, pulsante e lucente. Spira la luce in cerchi dorati, intorno alla vita, dai sogni tracciati.
Nel grembo profondo, silenzio e mistero, un feto riposa, nel cosmo sincero. Lì batte il principio, là nasce il cammino, tra spirali di luce e destino divino.
Ogni linea che danza, ogni curva che gira, è un canto d’amore, una voce che ispira. Nel centro un bagliore: è il cuore che vive, che pulsa e promette giornate più vive.
Nel buio che avvolge, la luce si fa, respiro del mondo, speranza che va. Un piccolo universo, cullato dal tutto, in quella scintilla, ogni senso è assoluto.
