【Meet the World's Greatest Masters】
Guangming Daily reporter Yan Weiqi
Many people have heard of "Morandi", but they may not know who Morandi is. How has the Italian painter, who lived a simple life all his life and has hardly left his hometown, undergone in his nearly 50-year creative career? He left behind a "palette" that the fashion industry admires, and what is the story behind the color? At the Kushi Art Museum on the Bund in Shanghai, a "Giorgio Morandi Exhibition" consisting of 51 authentic works awaits people to explore.
George Morandi (file photo)
A few ordinary objects, a few ordinary scenes, coupled with the most simple tones, fill the entire exhibition hall, telling the inner world of George Morandi. "I was born in Bologna in 1890 and studied at the Royal Academy. I paint landscapes and still lifes, and I also make and teach prints. I've written for a number of magazines, and others have written about me. A few words of self-condition, it seems to have been a lifetime.
Flowers (oil on canvas) George Morandi
Morandi's personality is undoubtedly restrained. Aside from a few experiences in his youth, he was not keen on joining art groups and rarely participated in the art movement. During the most vigorous period of european art development in the twentieth century, he allowed himself to live in seclusion. Even so, it did not in any way prevent Giorgio Morandi from becoming a high-profile Italian artist during the two world wars.
Still life (oil painting) by George Morrandi
The exhibition is divided into three chapters in chronological order, "From Early Experiments to Interaction of Light and Shadow", "Mature Stage: Never Outdated Landscape Painting and Still Life Painting", and "Morandi's Poetry in His Later Years", showing the painter's true and pure artistic life. The 51 works cover all four painting mediums of his career, including oil painting, watercolor, pencil/graphite painting, etching prints, including well-known still lifes, flowers and landscape paintings.
In the early years, Morandi's painting style was still unfinished, and his artistic career was interrupted by the influence of the First World War. During this time, he studied the major genres, refined his painting and printmaking skills, and also carefully moved closer to the major art movements of the early twentieth century, and also made several short trips to collect copies of paintings along the way.
Still life (oil painting) by George Morrandi
One of the exhibitions is a still life from 1914, reflecting Morandi's exploration of his own creative style at that time. The sharp lines, deep tones, and dislocated three-dimensional sense are significantly different from people's impressions of Morandi's paintings. At this stage, his works have both portrait silhouettes and containers such as bottles, cups, cans, and saucers, which later became the absolute protagonists of Morandi's works.
Around 1930, Morandi's most common creations were reddish-brown still lifes. At this time, his depiction of objects has completely jumped out of any past painting school. The clay pots, wine bottles and utensils on the tabletops all seem to be covered with a thin layer of gray soil, and the yellow and dark brown tabletops in the background make people trance into a room that has been dusty for a long time. Everything is so peaceful and holy.
Still life (oil painting) by George Morrandi
Morandi extracted the distinctive "gray tones" of classicism from color. When modulating colors, he will add dust, paint and other materials to the pigments, and will also imitate the creation method of Italian murals, mixing different natural clay pigments to create a unique "Morandi color". These subtle and charming colors are now used in fashion, design, film and many other fields.
In the creation of still life paintings in the mature stage, Morandi patiently and meticulously feels the furnishings of daily trivialities, and holds his lonely and abundant soul in a container that is almost blurred out of the details of objects. Stop long in front of the work and you will be impressed by the painter's pious gaze on simple objects. "It is not the grandeur that touches the infinite universe, but in silence you can listen to the music of all things," some viewers commented. Tonal changes, light use, juxtaposition of shapes... Morandi uses a paintbrush to construct the "infinite" and "eternal" of every nuance. With rational and deep emotions, he talks to still lifes, flowers and landscapes, and plays a variation of the growth of all things without moving.
Still life (oil painting) by George Morrandi
Some say that Morandi's work is "touching people's hearts with a soft voice". After the end of World War II, Morandi remained faithful to two major themes that he had long adhered to in his creations: First, still life paintings depicted ordinary things that were inconspicuous in daily life; The second is landscape paintings of the countryside and the city, depicting a village house in Grizzana or an unnamed courtyard in the center of Bologna. The elegant composition, the harmony of light and color, and the sense of space that have always been created make the picture simple and warm.
White Road (oil on canvas) by George Morandi
The most recognizable feature of Morandi's late works is the new arrangement of objects: in the early years, bottles and cans were placed side by side, in close proximity to each other; By this time, he had gathered the artifacts more closely in the center of the canvas, making their elements dense and shaped. In Morandi's studio, a 9-square-meter room is filled with countless utensils, large and small. For decades, he went out of his way to assemble, lining up these bottles, cans, dishes, boxes... In his world, that's all. He insisted on using something quiet to tell the story of the "invisible city".
Still life (oil painting) by George Morrandi
The subtle use of color and tranquility in Morandi's works are similar to traditional Chinese paintings. Some commentators have contrasted Morandi with the Chinese painter Jin Nong, who lived in the 18th century. Jin Nong, one of the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou", is full of natural humor in his paintings, and the colors are faintly intermediate, which is quite interesting with Morandi's paintings. Morandi's bottles and cans and the flowers, birds and stones of the Bada Shan people can also echo each other, and the same "pen and ink are extremely frugal, but there is no realm". No wonder the French painter Baltis said, "Morandi is undoubtedly the European painter closest to Chinese painting."
At one end of the exhibition hall, two of Morandi's "White Roads" from 1933 and 1941 are on display. One is an etching print, showing a path in the black and white world. One is an oil painting on canvas, a path in gray tones, like a poetic dream that has hidden time. This road seems to be a path to the soul, guiding people back to the true nature of life and life.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-08-28 09 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily