The art of Giorgio Morandi: Games of perception:
Still yet vital“A SINGLE twisted sea shell; a tall vase tightly crammed with roses; a bunch of weeds: each was the subject of a still life by Giorgio Morandi, an Italian artist who died in 1964, aged 73. He was also drawn to bleached-out houses in scraggly landscapes and, occasionally, to portraiture. Yet he is known almost exclusively for his luminous, pale paintings of bottles, bowls and jugs. He transformed these seemingly banal, utilitarian objects into works of art.Morandi created more than a thousand paintings. He also drew and learned how to etch, which he then taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, his hometown. Now 75 of these etchings—more than half of his output—are at the centre of ‘Lines of Poetry’, an exhibition at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London. The show is timed to celebrate the 15th anniversary of this intimate museum.The etchings fill two spacious ground-floor galleries. A cosy room upstairs is hung with ten of Morandi’s delicate drawings, all from the Estorick’s collection. White-washed walls and stripped pine floors provide the calm setting for this lovely and instructive…”
