Realistic art, still life, many landscapes and vases of flowers have never been high in my book of art priorities - but as with Simon Hantaï, some artists have such a wide palette, surprise can just be an exhibition away.
Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) came into my life 12 years ago. Perhaps a little longer. I came home stopping to see my Mother who was in a very excited state about a new artist. A good friend of ours had been in that afternoon and spoken about Morandi. He had lived in Bologna (Italy) all his life and there was a special museum there. Could we go? I used to snap at those opportunities as always it was discovery for me too. All I could understand from the excitement that this man had painted the same theme all his life. We went the following weekend and lo and behold.....
However, compared to the retrospective in Brussels I went to this week - the first in many years - Bologna had only given me a soupçon of all he had done.
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| Ajouter une légende |
Although Morandi spent all his life in Italy, his artistic inspiration was drawn from a highly varied and fertile European cultural tradition. He started by analyzing traditions from the different eras and artists he considered to be universal. Giotto (the exhibition I saw at the Louvre a few weeks ago) Uccello, Van Eyck, Vermeer....and later Corot, the French impressionists and above all Cezanne. I admit that I need to study the earlier artists if I am to see the connection. However, Cezanne and De Chirico are clear....
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| Bathers 1915 |
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| Bather 1918 |
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| 1916 |
Later he changed his style and would always dwell upon the same subjects - still life, landscapes, flowers although there is one self portrait which is magnificent.
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| 192 |
Everything was reduced to the essential - some people would call his work austere, devoid of naturalism, realism. That is precisely what draws me to it. His landscapes are reduced to a few essential abbreviated elements constructed with lines and bands. Triangles, squares, circles...which compel me to look further.
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| 1927 |
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| 1956 |
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| 1942 |
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| 1962 |
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| Reality |
His still Life which cover five decades (1916-1960) - the «objects» bottles, jugs, boxes, lamps, vases and so on were not chosen for their «style» but for their «shapes» - in the studio where we originally discovered his work - they were all there. Handled carefully, dotted with paint, chipped and yet loved. His work was small, easy to hang and the same picture or object was painted time and time again. Some paintings are ten years apart and need to be studied to see the subtle differences. I preferred the painting to the real object - which suddenly became too real for me.
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| 1920 |
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| 1952 |
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| 1916 |
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| 1943 |
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| 1947 |
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| 1951 |
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| 1920 |
His flower years too (1920-1958 are a joy. I commented to a friend today it would please me immensely if I received a picture like this rather than a bunch of roses which would stand up to living inside for only a few days.
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| 1947 |
This period became very important for him in the 40’s and the 50’s. Given to friends, his sisters, art historians....nearly all of these paintings focus on a single small vase of delicate buds. The vases are nearly always the antithesis of the monolithic forms he chose for his still life paintings. Each one I saw was beautiful but there is only one on the left that I would like to have on my wall. Once again, lacking in definition.
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| 1936 |
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| 1946 |
Morandi’s work is hypnotic. It draws me in by its minimalistic approach. I can stand in front of a work for a good ten minutes and then my gaze turns to what could be the same but done years later. The obvious changes are there but for the more subtle ones I will need to train my eye to see them faster.
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