Forte dei Marmi (LU) – It is the triumph of color and its dazzling brilliance, of metaphysical landscapes, of still lifes, but also of slippery streets, of country houses with cypresses and olive groves… and as you gradually cross the rooms , we scrutinize the faces of even the most unknown and secondary figures, we admire the sky and we slowly penetrate the artist’s interior universe, where boredom and pain, joy and disappointments, suffering and faint glimmers of hope, fantasy and darkness, therefore life and death, apparently distant but in reality inseparable in every moment of our existence.
In their provincial painting – because Italy is a province more than a nation and every place, although cursed by men, was as if blessed by God – one can find the masterpieces of Names, Soft, Rosai, Christmases, De Chirico… not all, but most of them damned Tuscan in their way of being unruly, misunderstood, insolent, cruel, ironic and unfriendly geniuses. And he was right Curzio Malaparte when he wrote on page 26 of his famous “Cursed Tuscans”: “And it would be better luck if in Italy there were more Tuscans and fewer Italians”. Sincere people, from bread to bread and wine to wine, but so free that he took almost literally that old Longanesian phrase that “what is missing is not freedom but free men”.
These restless and talented sons of the land of Dante and Machiavelli always remained tied to their country, to their roots, to their intrinsic local culture, of “savages” and gentlemen of the countryside, which only Tuscany still manages to preserve today in the river of an increasingly invasive and destructive globalization.
And the exhibition curated by Elisabetta Matteucci with the support of the president of the Villa Bertelli Foundation Ermindo Tucci is a timeless journey with the aim of transmitting another image of Forte dei Marmi.
The seaside resort, among the most luxurious in the world, was born as a destination and meeting place for artists, writers, poets, sculptors, patrons, journalists and wealthy bourgeois characterized by savoir-faire, elegance in manners and clothing. They could meet around the Caffè Roma al Quarto Platano Pea, GentleSoft, De Robertis, Mount them, Vianibut also Longanesivery young, Malaparte who flirted with Virginia Agnelli, mother of Gianni, as well as the many workers in the marble and nearby powder factories, worn out in their hands and faces by the most atrocious labors. The times of the Russians and the “cafonauts” will be far away, ready to destroy this pearl dug at the foot of the Apuan mountains and bathed at the foot of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The surrounding mountains and the sea, the salty flavour, the wooden boats abandoned on the shore, the clam fishermen loved by Carrà, Maccari, Viani, Nomellini, Catarsini, Calderini, Dazzi, Carena, Cecchi etc… some more assiduously, some less, they were all part of that great universe, of that natural and spontaneous breeding ground of free thought and teaching which was precisely the Fourth Platano.
“The exhibition”, says Elisabetta Matteucci, “has the task of documenting a less well-known period compared to the canonical paths of art to which we are accustomed: from the end of the 19th century to well into the 20th century. We can take as the initial temporal term Francesco Gioli who depicts the beach of Castiglioncello to close with a still life from the baroque period by Giorgio De Chirico from 1961″.
The ambitious attempt of this private collection, whose works have been carefully selected with a scientific and philological method, is to extend the research and journey between lights (many), shadows (few) and suggestions, from the Risorgimento to the first half of ‘900. Therefore, you have the pleasure of encountering the graceful and beautiful “Ciociara” by Plinio Nomellini, “Vele al sole” and “Paesaggio hilli con storia” by Mario Puccinidefined as “the Livorno Van Gogh”, “Libecciata all’Ardenza” by Renato Natali but also “The embroiderers” by Lodovico Tommasi. The element that characterizes these painters (post-Macchiaioli) is colour, used in an enveloping and extremely fascinating way which establishes the break with canonical drawing, the cornerstone of Tuscan academic teaching. And that he also opened an important debate with Giovanni Fattoria leading exponent of the Macchiaioli but above all teacher of many talented students such as Nomellini, Ghiglia etc… his influence also extended to Amedeo Modigliani.
One of the most appreciated works also for its historical significance is the 1907 painting, “Lady Ojetti in the rose garden” by Oscar Ghiglia. She, wife of one of the greatest Italian critics, journalists and writers, allows herself a regenerating and pleasant rest in the rose garden that dominates the scene. Ojetti, an exceptional talent discoverer – legend has it that he put in a good but above all authoritative word for a Tuscan boy who loved to work at the “Corriere della Sera”: Indro Montanelli – allowed Ghiglia, an irregular and very poor genius, to benefit from his patronage and then to meet Gustavo Sforni, a passionate and rich young man who will buy many of his works allowing him to live more than dignified.
From the landscapes to Puccini’s bindolo up to the Livorno glimpses of Natali, nature and the daily reality of ordinary people take on more and more shape and volume to triumph with Ottone Rosai – “Via Toscanella”, “Albero in fiore”, “Paesaggio” and then with the “Fiaccheraio” – and Ardengo Soffici present with two beautiful still life ovals, once belonging to the Vallecchi collection – the great protagonist of the Vocian season – and with “Winter Sunset. The Concone”.
It is precisely these two artists (without forgetting de Pisis, de Chirico and Savinio), linked to the Strapaesana current, which had its city in Florence and in
Tuscany, his homeland of the soul, to close a journey rich in history and suggestions in the awareness of the organizers that in a few weeks the Quarto Platano will come back to life where everything, or almost everything, began.
