Shotgun Review Archive

Giorgio Morandi

Natura morta, 1955, oil on canvas. We are fortunate to be enjoying the second exhibition in 3 years of the seldom-seen works of the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi at the Paul Thiebaud Gallery. The exhibition comprises less than 10 works, yet the experience it offers is substantial. Those who know Morandi's art will see again his familiar still life subjects: household containers, jars, teapots, vases, cups, funnels. As always, the objects are presented in modest scale, at the same close distance to the viewer, in a shallow space in front of a wall. Through the alchemy of Morandi's skill and vision, the paintings in the show, as always, are fresh and moving. As soon as you enter the gallery, you sense an atmosphere of quiet and even humility. Unlike most still lifes, the objects depicted here are quite alone in their surrounding space; the tone of solitude projects its own quality of time. Morandi rarely painted any object that had not been in his studio for a very long time, literally gathering dust that muted its surface qualities. His deep distrust of false drama or any kind of showiness expresses itself through a deeply harmonious overall palette of earth tones, white and subtle warm and cool hues. Morandi is visually low-key, but a master orchestrator of color relationships. As you get beyond the show's first impression of ochres and siennas, individual paintings reveal affecting use of blue, lavender, orange, rose, yellow, pink and viridian. The works are very sensual and produce an almost physical pleasure. Morandi is an artist's artist; he keeps us aware at every turn that the forms we see are created with fluid strokes of paint. His sure touch is never concerned with precision, but communicates a warm visual caress of the physical objects at hand. Morandi received much criticism and dismissal for painting descriptively, for "turning his back" on 20th century modernism. But in looking closely at these paintings, anomalies appear; his "realism" is soon seen to raise as many questions as answers. In his mature art, for his starting point, Morandi went back to Cezanne's experiential approach. Cezanne worshipped perceptual sensation in the moment, and stuck, come hell or high water, to the internal necessities of the artwork he was making. In the reproduction above from the show, the cup has an uneven lip - emphasizing its extension into empty space on the left. The left side of the vase's neck is chiefly defined by the painting of the "air" beside it, and the grayish band running round the vase is "open" to the wall behind. With the objects in the center of the picture, the subliminal emphasis on space on the left side of the painting balances the weight of the shadow of the objects on the right. The "grounding" of the objects here unexpectedly is tied to the compositional "horizon" behind which runs through them. The painting's visual and emotional center, the point where the two objects touch, is quite a complicated passage of painting. Opposing dark and light forms define each other. The deep shadow of the volumetric, receeding surface of the cup strangely contacts a bright, apparently flat edge of the vase. The two drawings in the show bring direct attention to visual uncertainties. These masterpieces of economy were quickly made. Morandi indicates selected outlines, edges where forms overlap, and shadows. Though, as with his oils, there is a "handmade," sensuous touch in his graphite lines and shading, the final impression is that of white paper, which can serve as light, form or space, or all three. From minimal clues, his familiar objects come in and out of your mind's eye, as you explore the suggested groups of forms. Beautiful and puzzle-like, the drawings are visually inexhaustible, results of a lifetime of looking that delves into the nature of perception itself. Morandi's focus on visual ambiguity reflects not only on the slippery nature of seeing, but also the idea that reality itself is more fluid than we think. Morandi is a great example of a "pure painter," concerned with how pigment can embody abstractions like figure and ground, light and dark, and increasingly in later works, as the objects in his work dematerialized further into translucent skins of sketchy paint, "being" and "nothingness." Described as "a painter of bottles with souls," Morandi is also a remarkable narrator, with a keen eye for personality. There are innumerable still life pictures, but how few create complex "characters" from bare indications of mass, gesture, position and shape, as we see in this show. Morandi's ability to suggest the human condition -with both seriousness and humor- through objects is truly marvelous. Dignity and vulnerability are the keynotes of Morandi's arrangements at Thiebaud. These poignantly clustered "families," gathered together for mutual support, are psychologically revealed because like all of us, no matter how they present themselves, they can't hide what they are. The viewers imagination is always given several paths to follow. In the painting above, the dominant vase is clearly the protector of the cup, which appears to lean on and be supported by it. Or perhaps not. Is the cup smaller but stronger, less formal and thus more flexible, its earthy substance more able to take life's knocks? Tenderly conceived with such kind regard, these characters, like the others suggested in the paintings on view, seem to exist only in relation with each other. The show put me in mind of several examples of world art: Mu-Qui's famous, witty "Persimmons" http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/JHTI/shinto/images/muqi-persimmons.jpg and Stonehenge http://www.sacredsites.com/europe/england/images/stonehenge_H_500.jpg . Both very different works have a remarkable presence of personalities, none of which is precisely fixed. As you consider each piece of fruit or standing stone singly or in relation to the others, like living characters, they change each time you look at them. The paintings of Gorgio Morandi will be on view though December 16th. More information about Morandi can be found at http://www.museomorandi.it/index_net.htm