Giorgio Morandi

Morandi Giorgio is an Italian painter and engraver. His almost proverbial isolation from the Italian cultural climate of the time and the strict control of expressive means inherent in his painting have long favoured a ‘crepuscular’ interpretation. 

More recent criticism has highlighted Morandi’s full membership of a culture that is not that of the immediate chronicle, but is found in history. Morandi only sporadically adhered to the Italian movements of the first half of the 20th century; his metaphysical period (1918-20) was more in keeping with the internal logic of his work than the intentions of that current. But this indifference was only the counterpart to the attention Morandi devoted to masters such as Cézanne, Vermeer, Chardin and Corot and to the fascination he felt for Giotto and the masters of the early 15th century, whose lesson can be felt above all in the still lifes of the metaphysical period.

 His production follows a personal aesthetic rule that stems from the coherence of the relationships between the meditated order of forms and the imperceptible variations of colour in a range of whites, yellows, ochres, greys, pinks and purples in both his famous still lifes and his landscapes. Using very few colours is a particular characteristic of his, making him poetic and surreal, and although he does not detail his subjects obsessively, one can see how they do not lose their realism. 

Immediately after 1930, the artist broke down the usual forms of his figuration (bottles, jugs, fruit bowls, flower vases, old oil lamps) into a thick, sober colour material, occasionally enlivened by bright ranges. 

Alongside his pictorial work alongside valuable drawings and watercolours, Morandi constantly cultivated the art of engraving of which he is an undisputed master, sometimes transporting the etching into the painting, sometimes following a reverse process always with his usual themes that distinguish him and make him unique in the panorama of art history. The works, produced with great care, are characterised by subtle, straight lines in a very complex interweaving of strokes with which he achieves highly effective perspective dimensions.