Taking Stock of a Reticent and Reclusive Master
It is nearly 30 years since the Guggenheim Museum mounted its retrospective of Giorgio Morandi, and in that time this reticent and reclusive Italian master (1890-1964) has become a name to conjure with in America and abroad. Though his fealty to modernism and to the avant-garde was always somewhat ambiguous, Morandi is an artist who rivals Rothko and Cézanne in the radical reduction of his subject matter (mostly bottles arrayed across a table top) and in his priestly devotion to the cause of painting.
A new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, billed as the first in America to assess the artist’s entire career, largely confirms the exalted regard in which Morandi continues to be held. That, in itself, is remarkable. For a kind of mythology now encrusts Morandi’s reputation — so thickly that it almost conceals his art. It consists in the notion that he was a perfect, indeed infallible, painter. That is not the case, as this exhibition unintentionally reveals. But far more important is that, even when his weaknesses are admitted, there is still an enduring core of artistic intelligence and vision to the man.
In its barest outlines, the story of Morandi’s life could scarcely be simpler. Born in Bologna, where he lived and where he died, Morandi painted and taught painting for many years in the local academy. Aside from summer jaunts to the nearby town of Grizzana and sightseeing excursions to Venice and Florence, Morandi, who never married, rarely ventured from his hometown. And he left Italy on only three occasions, crossing the border into the Italian part of Switzerland. Contrary to a widely held belief, however, he was not a loner. Rather, he associated with some of the leading Italian luminaries of his day. Nor was he unappreciated or ignored by his contemporaries: From relatively early on, he was written about, exhibited and duly honored even beyond his native country.