The secret of Giorgio Morandi

 

Morandi, Still Life, 1948 

An exhibition at the Estorick Collection comprised some 50 paintings and etchings by Giorgio Morandi, all from one collection, that of Luigi Magnani. My response to these works was instinctive rather than rational. Before examining the works in detail, I experienced a feeling of calm, of concentration on an everyday object, of turning one’s back on the modern world, since Morandi lived and worked through two world wars, without any sign in his art of what was happening around him. Still-life and flower painting remain today some of the most common themes of art. Many artists, like Morandi, reached a successful theme and then painted many variations on that theme. Would I have had the same response from looking at the work of any other still life and flower painter? Clearly not. What is it that is exceptional about Morandi? Is it that the viewer’s imagination is triggered by the very simplicity, even banality, of the themes?

Morandi’s work is so concentrated around a small number of subjects, perhaps one way to appraise it is to see if there are any exceptions. He painted one self-portrait, which was very competent, and one work that appears to me a  failure, apparently the only work that Morandi was ever commissioned to paint. Asked to depict some musical instruments, he apparently changed the instruments he was asked to paint, but still produced a very indifferent work.  Why? Because the relationship between the objects seems non-existent, and because the objects lacked the sense of three-dimensional shape provided by bottles. 

What did he paint? Possibly the most restricted range of subjects of any 20th-century artist. All he painted (and did prints of) was landscapes, still lifes, and flowers – and there are very few paintings of flowers. There seems little evidence of Morandi talking about art in grand or theoretical terms. His letters to Luigi Magnani seem to be exclusively preoccupied with practical matters. He lived at home with his three sisters, collecting them from mass every Sunday morning (although he didn’t attend mass himself).

Morandi mixed his own paints, and stretched his own canvases. His preferred format was almost square. He would adjust the objects he was painting if they did not provide the shape or colour he was looking for, so clearly his goal was not the exact depiction of what was in front of him; his painting is not realistic, even though every one of his paintings appears representational. He never painted a single object by itself, always multiple objects next to, in front of or behind each other.

Morandi, Still Life, 1936

Are these works of stillness? There doesn’t appear to be much struggle going on from his letters, nor much that critics have been able to identify. Nonetheless, there is something going on with these pictures. Morandi himself stated: “a painting should tell us about the images and emotions that the visible world ignites in us [the painters].” There is certainly something powerful being expressed, which, if it is not the objects themselves, is the relation between the objects. His works are usually signed, in a clearly visible way, so they are clearly a personal statement.

What surprised me on looking at the works in detail is their rough-and-ready execution. There is no attempt to get the verticals straight, or the handles of the jugs precise, or the perspective exact. In several pictures, the background appears to extend impossibly into and over the space occupied by an object. Sometimes the objects have weight, and are arranged as if in a photograph, but in others, the objects are off-centre, not arranged in a very realistic way, and the background is almost lacking in any perspective. Yet the works have a powerful impact, as if these objects in themselves have a vital significance. Remarkably, several etchings of still lifes have the same quality, even though the etchings appear to be more conventional – following rules of perspective and a more orthodox cross-hatching to express distance and proportion. In one or two of the landscapes, which are usually etchings, Morandi achieves the same arresting effect, forcing you to look at a view that in itself is not distinctive, until you notice the relationship between the buildings. There is one etching with a blank white wall on the right of the image – powerful because left blank. Is this just a standard etching technique or is this Morandi’s distinctiveness revealed again?

Morandi, Landscape (Chiesanuova) 1924

Critics suggest a relationship between Morandi and Cézanne, but for me, the most similar artist to Morandi was Chardin, who would paint some simple objects against a matt background with the utmost respect, and almost a feeling of reverence for them. As with Chardin’s still lifes, Morandi’s paintings are not ostentatious, drawing attention to the execution; in fact, their details are somewhat sketchy. Instead, they capture your attention by the sheer force of their execution, the artist’s expression of the idea of a bottle, a jug, some fruit, next to other, similar objects. In the end, as a viewer you start to reach for grand ways to describe such small-scale works.