- Renato Guttuso
Renato Guttuso (
26 December 1911 –18 January 1987 ) was one of the major Italian painters of the twentieth century.His best-known paintings include "Flight from Etna" (1938–39), "Crucifixion" (1941) and "
La Vucciria " (1974). Guttuso also designed for the theatre (including sets and costumes for "Histoire du Soldat ", Rome, 1940) and did illustrations for books. Those forElizabeth David ’s "Italian Food" (1954) introduced him to many in the English-speaking world.Biography
Introduction
He was born in
Bagheria , nearPalermo inSicily , but from 1937 lived and worked largely inRome . An anti-fascist , he joined the bannedItalian Communist Party (PCI) in 1940 and left Rome to become an active participant in the partisan struggle from 1943. He was also an opponent to theMafia . In 1972 Guttuso was awarded theLenin Peace Prize . In 1976 he was elected to theItalian Senate as a PCI representative for the Sicilian constituency ofSciacca .Childhood
Renato Guttuso's father, Gioacchino Guttuso, was a land surveyor and there are many portraits of him in the collection donated to the mayor of Bagheria. The precocious capabilities of the artist are apparent from the very first paintings from 1925.
His
bourgeois adolescence offered him plenty of stimuli. Guttuso lived close to a house amongst theValguarnera villas andPalagonia , which he would soon represent in paintings inspired by the cliffs ofAspra .In
Palermo and in the same Bagheria he saw the complete ruin of the nobility of the splendid villas of the 18th century, abandoned to urban decay as a consequence of political infighting wihtin the municipal chambers. At the same time, his family suffered a period of economic stress because of the hostility shown byFascists and clergy towards his father.He went to Palermo for high school studies, and then to the University, where his development was modelled on the European figurative trends of the day, from
Courbet toVan Gogh and toPicasso . His works opened to doors for him inMilan and to further travel throughout Europe.As his
expressionism became stronger we notice scenes of nature in flower, the lemon trees, the saracen olive trees, all in an environment suspended between myth and island insularity, that, when sent to theQuadriennale expo of 1931, he joined a collective of six Siciilian painters, acclaimed by the critic Franco Grasso as a "disclosure, a Sicilian affirmation".Back in Palermo he opened a studio in Pisani street and together with the painter Lia Pasqualino and the sculptors Barbera and Nino Franchina, formed the "Gruppo dei Quattro" ("The Group of Four").
Rejection of the academic principles and social art
He rejected every academic canon, putting free figures in space and searching for the pure sense of color. Guttuso joined the artistic movement "Corrente", which stood for free and open attitudes, in opposition to the official culture, and chose a strong anti-fascist position in the thematic choices through the years of the
Spanish Civil War .During a stay of three years in Milan, he developed his "social" art, which highlighted a moral and political commitment visible in paintings like "Fucilazione in Campagna" (1938), dedicated to the writer García Lorca, and "Escape from Etna".
Moving to
Rome , he opened a study inVia Margutta where, because of his natural exhuberance, his friend Mazzacurati nicknamed him "Unbridled". He lived close by to the significative artists of the time:Mario Mafai ,Corrado Cagli ,Antonello Trombadori , keeping also in contact with the group from Milan ofGiacomo Manzù andAligi Sassu .The controversial painting for which he is best remembered, at the time derided by the clergy and the fascists because it denounced the horrors of the war under a religious cover, is "
Crocifissione " ("Crucifixion"). Guttuso wrote in his diary: "it is the symbol of all those who endure insults, jail, torture for their ideas".He did not stop working during the years of
World War II , his work ranging from landscape glimpses of the Gulf of Palermo to a collection of drawings entitled "Massacri" ("Massacres"), that clandestinely denounced slaughters such as theFosse Ardeatine .Guttuso's marriage
In those years he met and married Mimise, who will become his confidant and faithful spouse, and model as well. After the liberation of Italy from Nazi-fascism he finished "Muratori in riposo" ("Workers resting"), china ink and watercolor of 1945, a symbol of rebirth of which
Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote in 1962: :"The shapes of ten workers":"emerge white over white masonry":"the noon is that of the summer".:"But the humiliated flesh":"projects a shadow; is the disarranged order":"of the white colors, that is faithfully followed":"by the black ones. The noon is a peaceful one".Then he painted "Peasant Who Hoe" (1947) and "Peasants of Sicily" (1951) in which the pictorical language became clear and free of all superfluous elements. Guttuso wrote that those were preparatory sketches for "Occupation of uncultivated lands of Sicily", exhibited in the
Venice Biennale in 1950, asserting:In 1950, Guttuso joined the project of the
Verzocchi collection (in the civicPinacoteca of Forlì ), sending, a self-portrait, and the work "sicilian labourer".He succeeded in astonishing his audience, alternating between the luminous and full vision of color of "Bagheria on the Gulf of Palermo" to the "Battle of the Bridge of the Admiral", in which he depicted his grandfather Ciro as a
Garibaldi ne soldier. He painted also a series from live about the fights of peasants for the occupation of lands, the zolfatari, or glimpses of landscape between cactus and prickly pears, as well as portraits of men of culture likeNino Garajo andBruno Caruso .Fascinated by
Dante 's model, in 1961 he made a series of color drawings, published in 1970, as "Il Dante di Guttuso", depicting the characters of Hell as examples of human history, confirming the versatility of his talent.In the late 1960s and 1970s he completed a suite of paintings devoted to the feminine figure, a motif that became as dominant in his painting as it was in his life: "Donne stanze paesaggi, oggetti" (1967) was followed by a series of portraits of
Marta Marzotto , his preferred muse of many years."The Vucciria Market"
His most famous "palermitano" painting is the "
Vucciria " (the name of Palermo's market), in which, with raw and bloody realism, he expressed one of the many spirits of the Sicilian city.Guttuso died in Rome at the age of 75.
After the death of his wife, he reconciled with the
Christian faith with which he had been critical and donated many of his works to his hometownBagheria , now housed in the museum of the Villa Cattolica.External links
* [http://www.guttuso.com/en/main_old.htm The Archivi Guttuso Association] en icon A site dedicated to Guttuso's life and work.
* [http://www.sifi.it/archivio/EN137/rubriche/Guttuso.htm Renato Guttuso and the Language of his Painting] en icon Review of a 2003/2004 exhibition.
* [http://www.artable.it/laboguttuso.html Laboratorio arte e letteratura:Renato Guttuso] it icon On a 2005 show relating Guttuso toAlberto Moravia ,Elio Vittorini , andPier Paolo Pasolini .
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