Giorgio Morandi seems to surface every few decades in the art world and leave as quietly as he enters. When I first noticed his work, at a retrospective put on by the Met in New York that is currently on display at the Phillips Collection in Dupont, I was a bit surprised. I did like many of his paintings, but it wasn’t glaringly obvious to me why I did. His labored still lifes, rendered in mostly grey and white hues, echoed Cezanne but without any vibrant color. They were unique, but not outspoken.
Painting is perhaps best likened to poetry. A minimal combination of words or visual forms can touch upon certain realities that transcend their immediate relevance. I’ve always preferred the simplicity of Japanese verse or early modern poets like William Carlos Williams. Writing or painting without ornamentation is perhaps the greatest challenge for an artist. It is the rawness of everyday life, of the mundane, that is more vulnerable than ostentation and allusion. It penetrates our own experiences, and because it is not above us, we can judge it on our own terms.
Morandi dabbled in futurism, cubism, and metaphysical painting, producing many works that were like those of Cezanne, Picasso, and Italian fascist artists that have since fallen into oblivion. But the works that stand out are those that were produced in the quiet domesticity of his home in Bologna. He was not well-traveled, rarely leaving his country, let alone the house that he shared with his sisters and mother. He never married, and he spent much of his time laboriously studying bottles and vases from his home, painting them in a remarkable, subdued, yet rich palette. These later still lifes define Morandi’s individual style and justify his enduring legacy.
There is something to be said about the works and the metaphors one can draw from them, but Morandi leaves us little need to express it. His legacy is best left to its aura of mystery, and his collective body of work represents the struggle of an artist to find his own voice amidst the artistic and political movements from which one would expect him to have been removed. It was not his talent as a painter that keeps us interested in Morandi today, although ironically much of his work really is about the painting itself. Rather, it was ultimately the retreat into the home and his reserved nature, the very qualities that defined his unusual life, that seem to legitimize his enduring reputation.
