Axial Age

A research project by Fabrizio Ruggiero reflecting on the emergence of ethical and spiritual consciousness across civilizations, translated into contemporary fresco and symbolic painting.

Buddha — Axial Age series — The quiet intensity of compassion, emerging from silence.

Socratic figure — Axial Age series — Questioning as form: thought carved into presence.

Axial Age — threshold image — A threshold of awakening, where inner vision takes form.

Mahavira — Axial Age series — Mahavira — the stillness of ethical clarity in a turbulent age.

Axial Age — symbolic composition — An image as passage — not representation, but threshold.

Axial Age takes its name from the historical period identified by Karl Jaspers as the moment in which distinct civilizations simultaneously articulated ethical, spiritual, and philosophical foundations that continue to inform contemporary thought.

In this project, fresco is approached as a durational and irreversible medium, embedding time, responsibility, and decision into the surface of the image. The figures do not function as portraits, but as symbolic thresholds — presences that mark the emergence of conscience, care, and reflective thought.

This node opens onto the broader project dedicated to the Axial Age as a philosophical and symbolic horizon within Fabrizio Ruggiero’s practice.

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Back to ART HUB Nodes →

Painting Monochromes — Analytical Fresco Research Structure & Form — Analytical Fresco Sculpture Sculptural Works Installation Venice — Human Absence Archives Portrait Archives — Effigies