painters-from-italy

"Salvatore Garau's canvases open onto a gigantic scene, an unlimited horizon that becomes the scene of majestic and impressive events ... We are confronted with an unknown energy. (Lóránd Hegyi)"

"Will the concept of the Sacred exist in some planet of another galaxy where, by now it is certain, thousands of worlds preserve some form of life?"

"Just the title, a soft light and the total absence of any physical intervention on the wall are already an immense presence."

"What is the problem? If someone goes to bed with your wife you get angry, but if you go to bed and you agree, the question is resolved. [...] If the works have been made available by the authors themselves. It's all linear. If anything, it will be a question of understanding what the product of this union is. On the other hand, it would be artistically serious if one intervened on a work without the author's consent. In practice it is unthinkable that this operation will be done on a work of the sixteenth century, just to understand. (Vittorio Sgarbi)"

"They are powerful signs, those that Garau wanted to paint. They are the reconnection of a tradition that has its roots in the best Renaissance and even earlier in Italian sacred art but revisiting it in a contemporary, not to say futuristic, key. They are a reflection on what the transcendent is: on this or other planets, even if there were other intelligences, the question of what is not visible would still arise. It is the attempt of art to suggest more than answers, the eternal questioning."

"The void, only apparent, is actually imbued with life and sacred mystery. Divine energy has made the void a manifest work, and from the void everything has come."

"Immaterial sculpture is not seen with the eyes but with the heart."

"[...] I think that there is no body in nature that lets entirely and unhinderedly flow the electrical fluid, but we should settle for the materials that lose less of it."

"The affectionate relationship maintained by the brothers was so legendary that even Vasari received reports of it. In his Vite, Vasari wrote that after the death of his brother Gentile, whom he had always loved with great tenderness, Giovanni remained behind as his ‘widow’, so to speak, a metaphor suggestive of both sadness and isolation. Gentile named Giovanni as his heir, bequeathing to him their father’s book of drawings, which had remained in Venice, and entrusting him with the completion of his painting of St Mark Preaching in Alexandria (for the Scuola Grande di San Marco."

"[Bellini's] expression of certain emotions is as poignant as any in the whole range of art, but it is never ecstatic or excessive; with him sorrow is never desperate, compassion never effeminate, nor does the tenderest affection ever verge on sentimentality."

"His jewels are Martian Things"

"After three years spent in a small goldsmith factory, I had nothing left to learn. A colleague who was looking for a new job as goldsmith, tells me: look I went to a small shop, figured that they do not even use the electric drill, but they make holes with bows, like the primitives. I understood that this was the place for me."

"I liked drawing and I had a passion for sculpture, after all goldsmithing is nothing but a miniature sculpture."

"I started with an idea that I had in mind and then I looked for the right technique to make it happen."

"Ever since the French revolution there has developed a vicious, cretinizing tendency to consider a genius (apart from his work) as a human being more or less the same in every sense as other ordinary mortals. This is wrong. And if this is wrong for me, the genius of the greatest spiritual order or our day, a true modern genius, it is even more wrong when applied to those who incarnated the almost divine genius of the Renaissance, such as Raphael."

"Time is a vindictive bandit to steal the beauty of our former selves."

"They say I can draw better than Raphael and probably they are right."

"I have lived in other cities, often equally and sometimes richer in historical and monumental testimonies, but where time has instead walked. And yet I met other counter-reforms, other inquisitions, others great from Spain."

"And the time, stopped for centuries, had not erased the dark and tragic memory of the Inquisition and the weight of the privilege of the great men of Spain."

"Most Holy Father, there are many who, on bringing their feeble judgment to bear on what is written concerning the great achievements of the Romans — the feats of arms, the city of Rome and the wondrous skill shown in the opulence, ornamentation and grandeur of their buildings — have come to the conclusion that these achievements are more likely to be fables than facts. I, however, have always seen — and still do see —things differently. For, bearing in mind the divine quality of the ancients' minds as revealed in the remains still to be seen among the ruins of Rome, I do not find it unreasonable to believe that much of what we consider impossible seemed, to them, exceedingly simple."

"There is nothing in Bardi's painting, which can not be explained by painting. And yet there is nothing in his painting that Sicily, in comparison, can not explain: and not only in the events, in the facts, but also and above all in the way of being. And in his way of being a painter. (Leonardo Sciascia, 1967)"

"The city where I spent my childhood and adolescence was, in ancient times, the magnificent seat of King and Viceroy. And for historical reasons known and unknown, the imprint of the Baroque age had prevailed over others of more ancient and illustrious times. And that impression had been perpetuated over time, both in the appearance of things and in the character of men."

"Six and eighteenth century monuments, gardens, palaces with pot-bellied balconies, chapels, oratories, convents with large paintings, but above all habits, the way people move, the way of thinking and articulate words. The folk tales and even the official culture that, after all, had not gone beyond a pious enlightenment: from those places, you know, the French revolution has not passed."

"There is nothing in his painting which Sicily cannot explain. (Leonardo Sciascia)"

"Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands,"

"In our time it has been seen, as I hope to show quite shortly, that simple children, roughly brought up in the wilderness, have begun to draw by themselves, impelled by their own natural genius, instructed solely by the example of these beautiful paintings and sculptures of Nature. Much more then it is probable that the first men, being less removed from their divine origin, were more perfect, possessing a brighter intelligence, and that with Nature as a guide, a pure intellect for master, and the lovely world as a model, they originated these noble arts, and by gradually improving them brought them at length, from small beginnings, to perfection. I do not deny that there must have been an originator, since I know quite well that there must have been a beginning at some time, due to some individual."

"It is true that , who afterwards did the ornamentation of the other organ opposite this one, displayed much more judgment and skill than Luca, as will be said in the proper place, because he did almost the whole of the work in the rough as it were, not delicately finishing it, so that it should appear much better at a distance than Luca's; as it does, for with all his care and skill the eye cannot appreciate it well because of the very polish and finish, which are lost in the distance, as it can the almost purely rough hewn work of Donato. To this matter artists should devote much attention, because experience shows that all things seen at a distance, whether they be paintings or sculptures or any other like thing, are bolder and more vigorous in appearance if skilfully hewn in the rough than if they are carefully finished. Besides the effect obtained by distance, it often happens that these rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes sap the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off."

"Although Titian's works seem to many to have been created without much effort, this is far from the truth and those who think so are deceiving themselves. In fact, it is clear that Titian retouched his pictures, going over them with his colours several times, so that he must obviously have taken great pains. The method he used is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, for it makes pictures appear alive and painted with great art, but it conceals the labour that has gone into them."

"I think that anyone who will take the trouble to consider the matter carefully will arrive at the same conclusion as I have, that art owes its origin to Nature herself, that this beautiful creation the world supplied the first model, while the original teacher was that divine intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it."

"Titian, having adorned Venice, or rather all Italy and other parts of the world, with excellent paintings, well merits to be loved and respected by artists, and is in many things to be admired and imitated also, as one who has produced, and is producing, works of infinite merit; nay, such as must endure while the memory of illustrious men shall remain."

"Last year I visited the painter Morandi in Bologna. He expressed to me his sympathy with the young art students of the present day. "There are so many possible ways to paint," he said, "it's all so confusing for them. There is no central craft which they can learn, as you or I could once learn a craft.""

"Accounts have long described Morandi as a provincial painter, leading a quiet and isolated life, un-involved in politics and unaffiliated with any artistic movement - a reticent man so intently focused on his still-life compositions of household objects that he earned the moniker 'the painter of bottles.' It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that established Morandi scholarship avoids complexities and ambiguities in both his life and work that could result in a much richer narrative:. ..an artist responsive to contemporary avant-garde movements, seen in his lesser-known paintings that reveal Futurist, Cubist, pittura metafisica, and Strapaese influences. Morandi's mature works are more difficult to characterize; he embraced neither abstraction nor the propagandistic realism of the 'Novecento' movement. Perhaps Morandi's relative obscurity outside of Italy comes from his distinct place outside of any twentieth-century 'ism'."

"..my own paintings of that period (1916 – 1919) remain pure still-life compositions and never suggest any metaphysical, surrealist, psychological, or literary considerations at all [reacting on similarities with the art of Carrà, and de Chirico, suggested by the interviewer]. My milliners' dummies, for instance, are objects like others and have not been selected to suggest symbolic representations of human beings of legendary or mythological characters. The only titles that I chose for these paintings were conventional, like 'Still Life, Flowers or Landscape', without any implications of strangeness of an unreal world [as in Surrealism or in 'Pittura Metafisica' of De Chirico]."

"I suppose I remain.. ..a believer in Art for Art's sake rather than in Art for the sake of religion, of social justice or of national glory. Nothing is more alien to me than an art which sets out to serve other purposes than those implied in the work of art in itself.."

"My only source of instruction has always been the study of works, whether of the past or contemporary artists, which can offer us an answer to our questions if we formulate these properly.. .I would never be of much use as a guide or instructor, nor have I ever wanted to be one, even when I have been asked to undertake the job [still, Morandi was art professor - etchings - at the Art Academy of Bologna for many years]. [the text of this interview was later examined by Morandi and approved in the English translation]"

"I believe that nothing can be more abstract, more unreal, than what we actually see. We know that all we can see of the objective world as human beings, never really exists as we see and understand it. Matter exists, of course, but has no intrinsic meaning of its own, such as the meanings that we attach to it. Only we can know that a cup is a cup, that a tree is a tree.."

"I also believe there is nothing more surreal and nothing more abstract than reality."

"The feelings and images aroused by the visible world are very difficult to express or are perhaps inexpressible with words because they are determined by forms, colors, space and light."

"I have been fortunate enough to lead.. ..an uneventful life. Only on very rare occasions have I ever left Bologna, my native city, and the surrounding province of Emilia. Only twice, for instance, have I been abroad.. .Besides, I speak only my native language, as you see, and read only Italian periodicals.. .When I was in my early twenties, my highest ambition was to go abroad study art in Paris.. ..the material difficulties involved were too great, and I was obliged to remain in Italy. Later I had too many responsibilities, with my teaching and my family [his sisters he lived with] and never managed to go abroad."

"When most Italian artists of my own generation were afraid to be too 'modern,' too 'international' in their style, not 'national' or 'imperial' enough, I was still left in peace, perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. My privacy was thus my protection and, in the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained a provincial professor of etching, at the Fine Art Academy in Bologna."

"As regards my paintings of similar compositions I cannot give you any indication [about possible 'variants' in his works] because I'm afraid I've never made a note of where my paintings have ended up.. .I am always at work and work is my sole passion. And unfortunately I've become aware that I must always start from the beginning, and ought to burn what I've done in the past."

"If you only knew.. ..how much I want to work.. .I have some new ideas that I would like to try out. [a few days before Monrandi's death in 1964]"

"I am essentially a painter of the kind of still-life composition that communicates a sense of tranquility and privacy, moods which I have always valued above all."

"A white bottle is all that remain."

"Let us hope that these dark days [Summer in 1943 when Morandi took refuge from the war in Grizanna where he remained on his own for a year] will be followed by better ones. I work, but these continual worries are extremely tiring, believe me. I should like to see you again.."

"..my favorite artist, when I first began to paint, was actually Cézanne. Later, between 1920 – 1930, I developed a great interest in Chardin [famous for his still-life], w:Vermeer and Corot, too.. ..that's why you have been able to detect in my works of between 1912 – 1916 some recognizable influences of the early Paris cubists and above all, of Cézanne."

"I have received your critical essay [of C. L. Ragghianti who visited Morandi's studio frequently and watched him painting] for the catalogue of the Mattioli collection. I must confess that I am not a little disturbed by what you say. I shall say no more. My own desire is to continue to live with a little peace, which is the only thing that still allows me to work. I am sure I am worth much less than what you say. Not out of modesty, believe me. I only wish it were as you say. If you could, please avoid the comparison with Picasso. Furthermore I must point out an error of fact where you say on p. 4 that 'for those who might not know, Morandi draws, tries out plans of his compositions, etc.., etc..' – and you have had the occasion to see the plans of objects on my table. This only serves to immediately recover my position when I reassemble a composition. Nothing more. Another thing.. ..[tracing the shape of his feet on the floor].. ..it's to mark a reference for re-establishing the point of view. Think about this, then. I am grateful for your concern, but believe me when I say it leaves me ill at ease."

"..before I die I should like to bring two paintings to completion. What matters is to touch the limit, the essence of things."

"He [ Jackson Pollock ] just jumps in before he knows how to swim. [when Morandi sees paintings of Pollock for the first time]"

"I have always concentrated on a far narrower field of subject matter than most other painters, so that the danger of repeating myself has been far greater. I think I have avoid this danger by devoting more time and thought to planning each one of my paintings as a variation on one or the other, of these few themes."