To think of Italian artwork is to think of the Renaissance. Supported by the Pope and the powerful Medici family, the arts flourished during the 14the through the 16th centuries. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, these are the artists whose names inspire awestruck reverence. Florence became the art capital of the world.
France gave Impressionism to the world in the 19th century. The secular age had begun. With the 20th century came the modern period with Picasso and Matisse the more prominent names. They achieved the fame the Renaissance artists had achieved. Italy was history, France was the present and America would be the future.
Meanwhile back in Italy, an artist was quietly building his oeuvre and teaching drawing in his hometown of Bologna. Giorgio Morandi, with his somber tonalist still lifes somehow managed to claim attention and achieve a reputation away from the clamor of Paris. He also earned rankings as the greatest modern painter in Italy and the master of the still life in the 20th century.
Morandi was influenced by another Italian, Giorgio de Chirico, whose paintings depicted a brooding surrealism. Nevertheless he is often compared with Giotto, a pre-Renaissance painter of childlike simplicity. The paintings of Morandi, unembellished still lifes of ordinary bottles, evoke the architecture of Italy, especially that of medieval Bologna.
The adage less is more is the mainstay of the Morandi conceptual framework. With a muted hue structure, a lack of technical trickery such as reflections and special effects, his bottles are reduced to straightforwardness. With no personal significance given to his objects, he reduces the work further into abstraction. With all narrative removed, we are left with an entrenched spiritual component.
Traveling in Italy, the grandeur of its artistic heritage can overwhelm. A visit to the Morandi Museum in Bologna will refresh your aesthetic appreciation for Italian artwork. There is no history to absorb, no literary message to understand. Only the simple forms and the play of light. You will wonder how something so ordinary can revive your spirit. That is what a gifted artist can do. Read more about: Italian Artwork
France gave Impressionism to the world in the 19th century. The secular age had begun. With the 20th century came the modern period with Picasso and Matisse the more prominent names. They achieved the fame the Renaissance artists had achieved. Italy was history, France was the present and America would be the future.
Meanwhile back in Italy, an artist was quietly building his oeuvre and teaching drawing in his hometown of Bologna. Giorgio Morandi, with his somber tonalist still lifes somehow managed to claim attention and achieve a reputation away from the clamor of Paris. He also earned rankings as the greatest modern painter in Italy and the master of the still life in the 20th century.
Morandi was influenced by another Italian, Giorgio de Chirico, whose paintings depicted a brooding surrealism. Nevertheless he is often compared with Giotto, a pre-Renaissance painter of childlike simplicity. The paintings of Morandi, unembellished still lifes of ordinary bottles, evoke the architecture of Italy, especially that of medieval Bologna.
The adage less is more is the mainstay of the Morandi conceptual framework. With a muted hue structure, a lack of technical trickery such as reflections and special effects, his bottles are reduced to straightforwardness. With no personal significance given to his objects, he reduces the work further into abstraction. With all narrative removed, we are left with an entrenched spiritual component.
Traveling in Italy, the grandeur of its artistic heritage can overwhelm. A visit to the Morandi Museum in Bologna will refresh your aesthetic appreciation for Italian artwork. There is no history to absorb, no literary message to understand. Only the simple forms and the play of light. You will wonder how something so ordinary can revive your spirit. That is what a gifted artist can do. Read more about: Italian Artwork
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