Palazzo Salmatoris in Cherasco is the exhibition site of a leading Italian and international 20th century painter’s works,Giorgio Morandi (Bologna 1890-1964). This exhibition is an event of great cultural impact in the Piedmont and Italian territories, to judge by the remarkable flow of visitors to the 17th century historic dwelling that has long been the perfect setting for leading figures in the world of art. General attention is focussed on this event of such standing for the “City of the Peace Treaties”, which has for years asserted itself with the regional and national public by presenting a wide range of events.

This exhibition helps us form a complete picture of the cultural effort and policies of a Municipality as few others in Italy, as it displays the works of a famous contemporary painter, who was “born, lived and died in Bologna”, to use Argan’s words, and who extensively contributed to 20th century painting with his objects, which were also characters.
The palace’s suggestive halls exhibit about sixty works by the Bolognese artist, comprising oil paintings, watercolours, drawings and many etchings. The oil paintings date from 1922-‘23 and represent themes such as flowers and landscapes - mostly views of the Apennines, Grizzana and Roffeno, which the painter enjoyed visiting from time to time - to then come to Morandi’s favourite subject, still life, with works produced in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s and even one painted the year he died - 1964.
Morandi, painter and etcher, completed his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. Cézanne was one of his first landmarks when he restyled his formal culture. He joined in the most advanced contemporary artistic studies that in 1914-‘15 lead to early signs of cubism. Morandi adhered to the metaphysical experience for a short spell without on the other hand changing the pure and essential nature of his pictorial vision and from 1920 he concentrated on studying and improving his style. His early works were characterized by intense, undiluted colours and summary strokes, while he later reached a mellow and poetic chromatic texture, which could already be discerned in his first still lives produced in the ’20s-’30s. Referring to a reality restricted to a few objects of common use such as bottles - the precious relics in his study - jars, jugs, kettles and oil-lamps, Morandi defined the entire lyrical world that constantly accompanied his consistent pictorial evolution, without however abstaining from observing the landscape. At the same time he studied visual techniques that differed from painting itself to concentrate, with a refined and elaborate touch, on the difficult art of etching, right from 1911-‘12. Great is the depth of poetry in Morandi’s still lives – a theme he was morbidly fond of and which he narrated in its many facets in his studio in via Fondazza, Bologna, where those dusty objects powerfully rewrote the history of 20th century art. Few elements, few shapes, few colours are essentially organized and surrounded by silence – light strikes them and plays an important role by creating a variety of relations. Morandi relates as few others, equalled probably by De Chirico, Savinio and De Pisis, the neoclassical and Renaissance clearness that is typical of the ‘20s, thanks also to the return to order proposed by the Florentine review La Voce. Boxes and jars, drawn and painted, evoke great wonder because they contemplate wide-ranging meditative art such as Giotto, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca’s works and because their many variations, relations and chromatic vibrations recall Franciscan poverty. Despite his focus on simple themes such as still lives and the Grizzana landscape, Morandi evoked the very heart of things - he expressed their essence and “scratched” their symbols, making real abstractions of those pure, ideal and absolute forms, moving beyond commonplace naturalism.
Some metaphysical signs anticipate masterpieces such as Landscape (1921), Still Life (1922), Grizzana (1936), Shells (1943), Flowers in a Jar (1950) and Composition (1960), alternated by other oil paintings that complete the refined and introspective artistic course followed by the Bolognese artist. Masterly produced watercolours, drawings and etchings, which always depict the themes typical of Morandi, complete the works displayed. Observers will not fail to recall his studies for etchings, which date back to the early 20th century. Visitors leave the exhibition charged with a spirituality drawn from the spaces and shapes the great Bolognese artist interpreted with new understanding every day of his life.
(traslated by Interpres)