We don't often focus so much attention on one artist, though we went out of our way to see Le Corbusier's Unité and Picasso's prints at the British Museum. Artists like Le Corbusier and Picasso hold a great deal of cultural impact and 'star-power', so how do we explain our fascination with Giorgio Morandi. Not an 'unknown', he's a prominent artist, but probably less familiar to those who don't read art history books. But he's a native son and local favorite in Bologna (pop 390,850 in 2024).
The Museo Morandi is a wing of the MAMbo (Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna) in the northwest section of the old city. We visit the permanent collection before focusing on Morandi.
As tourists, "Punti di vista (Bologna)" (Sabrina Mezzaqui, 1998) certainly makes a connection; it's a grid of postcards with punched windows mounted on a five-panel wooden and plexiglass screen. All the postcards are of buildings in Bologna. The removal of the windows is like a portrait without eyes, as if a mysterious someone is looking back at us. When we walk to the other side, we are that someone.
A piece with a similar duality is "Impressions" (Bartolini Massimo, 2008), which is a folding stage and photo print. The underside of the stage looks sculptural, geometrically intricate; it catches light, creates a rhythm, and activates the surface. Only when we study the frame do we see the hinges. We cannot see the folded stage and the photo at the same time.
Another work occupies the end of another long gallery. "rs548049170_1_69869_TT (The Other Shapes of Me)" (Emilio Vavarella, 2020-21) is a video installation composed of a modified Jacquard loom, a punch-card program, and a textile. The program is based on the artist's DNA. The video shows the loom running the program and creating the textile, mindlessly and mechanically (evidently, the artist's mother ran a loom, thus connecting her work and his gestation).
Sala delle Ciminiere contains a special exhibition of "Facile ironia. L'ironia nell'arte italiana tra XX e XXI secolo", which we see through tinted windows. But it's also painted in intense, matching colors (the show is a separate ticket).
An upper gallery contains "Figurabilità. Pittura a Roma negli anni Sessanta", a smaller show which features a few pieces from the permanent collection. The shows centers on "Funerali di Togliatti" (Renato Guttuso, 1972), which depicts the idealized funeral of Palmiro Togliatti, leader of Italy's Communist Party (recall Bologna's 'Rossa' nickname). The painting contains dozens of accurate portraits of world leaders: (left side) Pablo Neruda, Angela Davis, Jean-Paul Sartre, Lenin; and (right side) Luchino Visconti, Rosa Luxemburg, and Stalin.
The title of "Autoritratto a nove anni" (Giosetta Fioroni, 1966) translates to "self-portrait at nine years old"; a single portrait that also rewards intense scrutiny.
Museo Morandi, formerly housed in the Palazzo d'Accursio, now fills several rooms on MAMBo's upper level. Its curatorial path clearly documents the artist's movement towards graphic abstraction. Perhaps because of the clarity of the execution and the simplicity of the compositions, we've rarely seen a clearer path.
For example, "Composizione" (ink on paper, 1915) is from his early year just out of art school and looks like a Cubist collage even though it's an ink drawing. While "Natura morta" (watercolor on paper, 1960) jumps to the end of his career, beautifully balanced and composed forms that could be read in many ways.
Filling the timeline, "Natura morta con conchiglie" (soft ground etching on zinc, 1920) and "Natura morta" (etching on copper, 1930) show Morandi's early mastery of etching, pieces that resemble quick pencil or ink sketches, but in fact are the results of a printing process.
"Natura morta" (oil on canvas, 1956) and "Natura morta con cinque oggetti" (etching on copper, 1956, top image) represent the iconic Morandi image: a flattened composition of bottles and vases with intense attention to light and color. And it's hard to separate the specific colors and shadowy 'towers' from the streetscapes of Bologna.
For example, the sharp highlights and reflections in the "cinque oggetti" etching provide tremendous depth (note the duller highlight on the bottle behind the pitchers), yet their 'striped' rendering flattens them out. And his mature images are typically set on a folded stage, like a surrealist landscape, where the emotional impact is generated by absence.
Through "Natura morta" (oil on canvas, 1957) and "Natura morta" (watercolor on paper, 1959) we can feel Morandi's drive to perfect this. Morandi takes his simple ideas and pushes towards their extreme conclusion through careful study and iteration.
These include landscapes, such as the two "Peesoggia" (both watercolor on paper, 1960), which are treated in the same manner as a 'natura morta'.
In three more "Natura morta" (watercolor on paper, all from 1962), Morandi aligns shapes and edges, overlaps negative forms, and reduces his palette to basic tones, on a quest to show and say more with less.
The final two "Natura morta" (oil on canvas / graphite on paper, 1964) images date from just before his passing. They are a proper culmination of this progression – reduction to the essential. Plus, he makes it work in both painting and drawing, perfectly encapsulating the artist, his city, and the story of his art.
Along the way the gallery offers shuttered views of the city, one over a pigeon's shoulder to a crosswalk on Via Giovanni Minzoni and another through a reddish tint to the Parco del Cavaticcio. This sets up our return to the ticket lobby where "Ghosts" (Maurizio Cattelan, 2021) is on display, part of the "Facile ironia" show.
Thus, we re-enter the world outside MAMBo with altered perspectives.
After lunch in the Quadrilatero, we have a few hours before our tickets to the Casa Morandi, and we stop into the Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita (17th-18th centuries), which is slotted into this dense market neighborhood.
The Santuario is an incredible, elliptical, Baroque space filled with dramatic sculptures. The heroic figures in the pendentives are "Le Quattro Sibille: Cumana, Persica, Eritrea, e Frisia ("four Sibyls", Luigi Acquisti, 18th century). The four arches are carried by luscious, three-quarter round Corinthian columns, with smaller chapels set into the diagonal corners.
The main, oval dome, raised on an extended drum, spills light onto the gleaming terrazzo. The circular, chancel dome features "L'Assunzione della Vergine" (Gaetano Gandolfi, 1776-79), with a third trompe-l'œil dome beautifully blended into the architecture behind the retable. The scale is thus multiplied in all dimensions.
VITA ET SPES NOSTRA SALVE
The altar maggiore houses the "Madonna in trono col Bambino e Santi" ("Madonna della Vita", attr Pietro di Giovanni Lianori, 15th century), a framed, fresco fragment – 'miraculous' survivor of an ancient vault collapse.
The "Compianto sul Cristo Morto" (Niccolò dell'Arca, 1463) consists of seven figures arranged on an empty stage in the large side chapel at the Epistle side of the altar maggiore. The figures are (left to right):
Nicodemo (disciple of Jesus, pliers at his belt),Maria Salomè (mother of James the Greater & John the Evangelist)Maria (Mother of Jesus)San Giovanni Apostolo (evangelist)Maria di Cleofa (hands forward)Maria Maddalena (at Christ's feet)
Known as the "Urlo di Pietra" ("scream of stone"), its emotional content is obvious and striking for Quattrocento sculpture. But the realism, detail, and craftsmanship are undeniable: the lace collars, the trim on the pillow, and Maria Maddalena's billowing robe. The group's faded pigment is proof that in its day, this would have been a full-color, operatic marvel.
Strangely, the most impactful figure is the reserved Nicodemo, who is kneeling, having just taken Christ from the Cross, and looks directly at the audience. His stern demeanor demands our engagement, and we share the grief.
The figures on either side of the altar maggiore are "Continenza e l'Umiltà" (Petronio Tadolini, 18th century); from the side chapel, we get a closer look at "Continenza". A large semi-circular painting of "Madonna in gloria con San Francesco ed altri Santi" (Jacopo Calvi detto il Sordino, 18th century) is in the same chapel as the "Compianto" and includes the skyline of Bologna.
Upstairs and to the west, L'Oratorio dei Battuti (17th century) is a long, rectangular room beside the Santuario which connects to the adjoining hospital. A small domed chapel, lavishly decorated, sits to the north. The lower walls are stripped of furnishings and the bare surfaces used to exhibit other art pieces. But above the 'eye line', the Oratorio's complete Baroque interior is intact.
Walking to the south, San Petronio and San Procolo (Alessandro Algardi 17th century) are to the north, and San Francesco and San Domenico (Giulio Cesare Conventi, 17th century) are further south, the four patron saints of Bologna.
The "Transito della Vergine" (Alfonso Lombardi, 16th century) is at the north end of the Oratorio, another terracotta sculptural group, but this one is centered around the body of the Vergine. The work is the result of a commission by the Confraternita dei Battuti soon after the "Madonna della Vita" was recovered and provides a 'bookend' to the Madonna and the Marian cycle, at the heart of the brotherhood's devotion.
The subject of the Transito is may also be a reaction against the Reformation as well as the prominence of local Jewish bankers. Taken from the "Legenda Aurea" by Jacopo da Varazze, Mary's procession is stopped by Jewish high priests, but San Pietro (kneeing) and the Apostles call divine intervention, represented by the suspended angel, to paralyze and convert them. The Apostles carry books, which represent their absolute adherence to scripture, as opposed to Martin Luther.
The angel retains the white-ish, 'faux-marble' finish that all the forms once had, suggesting the Renaissance 'classical' ideal. The composition lives in ornamented, tiered Corinthian stage, with a trompe-l'œil Doric backdrop. Though above eye-level, one Apostle practically falls off the stage, and we feel the urgency of the moment.
Casa Morandi is on the Via Fondazza in the southeast section of the old city. Hoping to see more Morandi artwork, we are disappointed that the Casa Morandi is almost all "Casa": his bedroom, studio, library, and so on. There is limited gallery space and much of the art is at such a distance that interaction is impossible.
If properly preserved, Morandi's life is simple and focused on his work. Devotional images hang beside the beds. The glass shelves in the closets are packed full of household pieces for the still lives – vases, bottles, figurines. The cast shadows become paintings of their own.
On the way back to the hotel we pass through the Portico dei Servi (14th-16th centuries) which encloses the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi (14th century).
Coming upon the Due Torri (12th century), the barricades that had surrounded them last November are now down, and the base of the Torre degli Asinelli is approachable, with the Torre della Garisenda leaning towards us just over the parapet.
Back on the Via Rizzoli, the campanile of the Parrocchia dei Santi Bartolomeo e Gaetano (16th century) joins the duo.
Just northwest, we find another tower, the Torre dei Prediparte (12th century), with its dynamic 'zigzag' crown. Finally at a distance, the tops of the towers disappear and reappear, above the elemental shapes, the grey and earthy tones, and the quiet streets.
