Still Life with Pomegranates, Bruno Croatto 20th Century Oil Italian Painting

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Still Life with Pomegranates, Bruno Croatto 20th Century Oil Italian Painting

About the Item

Bruno Croatto (Trieste 1875 - Roma 1948) Still Life with Pomegranates Signed and dated top left: Bruno Croatto Roma 1945 Bruno Croatto completed his training in Trieste and later perfected his career in Munich by starting in 1897 (L'eletta exposed in Venice). He quickly matured an unmistakable style, supported by an impeccable design and a lucidity of vision, sometimes surreal. In a sense, with his still lifes, his landscapes and his rarest portraits, the atmosphere of magical realism can be perceived. Among the works exhibited at national exhibitions we mention: Crepuscoli, The bell of Monte Castello, A silent corner, Light drunkenness, Ponte della Guerra, Still life, Venice, Biblical motif, The school of San Rocco, The queen of Sheba, The den of pirates, Lemons, Salome. A magnificent artist: painter and etcher. It is certainly not me who can claim to "discover" Bruno Croatto from Trieste. They know him too well, they love him profoundly is their «enfant gaté», and I, who spent many delightful hours in his studio, amidst the most exquisite stills of his luminous art, will only try to show my readers my admiration for this painter so alive, so active, so creative, so multi-faceted. In his atelier it seems to be in Japan or China and if it were not his works and if it were not the presence of this man all nerves and all "verve" - ??looking a little Japanese because hairless and dry - the illusion would be complete. An art conversation with Bruno Croatto is a rare enjoyment of the spirit: he speaks with vivacity, with an intense spiritual anxiety, with a clear, precise, sculptural sincerity. What he says represents him with surprising accuracy, in a few words, with some brief traces of his Tacitian phrase, really polite were just as many touches of his brush. As he paints, so he speaks: with sincerity of color, with rapidity of touch. And I understood his art - the essence of this, his art - by looking at his works commented on by his word and his gesture. For him it is completely indifferent to have to paint a flower, a cloud, a fruit, a body: for him, the whole universe is nothing but a collection of colored spots. If he chooses a tougher flower than a fruit is not for the object, it is only because he finds, in what he has chosen, a certain harmony of color that pleases him. Also in the etching - where he is a master - it is, above all, the pictorial impression that dominates: if he were to make the etching based only on the sign and on the line he would not know how to get by. It is a pictorial temperament par excellence. Even with a little charcoal or white clay he always looks for the effect of color. Drawing, in the scholastic, academic, and classical sense, the design of the contours does not exist for him: indeed, in some marvelous drawings, it is completely abolished: there is nothing but the effect of color - of white and black - which makes up for around, which makes the plastic of a human body, the sinuosity of any hip or curve: the very spirit of movement interpreted and rendered not by design but by the effect of color - rather than light. It would seem a paradox; but look at his drawings and all his paintings and in each one you will find this search, natural, passionate, which is the very need for his soul, which is the necessary expression of each of his artistic conception. And besides, this concept of his corresponds perfectly to the pictorial canon: that painting must, after all, give the illusion of what it is not, it must be done with few means and be as if it were not made of few means. Velasquez has shown it and it seems that Bruno Croatto, in love, follows the master of Spain. That picture by Velasquez: "Innocent X" of the "Galleria Doria" in Rome is a marvelous portrait: wherever you stand, the Pope's eyes look at you, stare at you, scrutinize you: it looks like a meticulously finished portrait: look at it closely and you will notice instead that it is made of seven or eight strokes of color. The whole effect is due, in fact, to the play of color. And it seems that Croatto tends to arrive at this: simplicity of workmanship, spontaneity more apparent than real. After all, these jobs are more difficult than those in which the author does not want to hide the artifice. Bruno Croatto has painted many flowers: perhaps nothing in nature gives him that harmony of color of which his exquisite soul is in love; perhaps the harmony of a yellow and green, of a white and green, so, could only get it by putting together some fabrics! But neither less. However - as I said earlier - he does not paint flowers for the sake of making a flower: color, color: here is the eternal sorceress enchantress of her eyes and her hand. There are - in his study - some studies of still life that arouse the most vivid admiration: a bunch of pears near a red glass bowl: and he made this picture only to obtain the effect of the relationship between the white of the tablecloth and the luster of the glass which is of an even higher tone, even more clear. But then it is not only in the flowers in which he attains the perfection of these contrasts, and of these coloristic spiritualities. There are two pictures of a woman - her lady, Igea, is the divine inspirer of all her female figures, she is the most intense collaborator of her spirituality - in which I believe that he has reached the maximum of his pictorial art. In one - which represents Mrs. Igea, wrapped in a green shawl, which plays the cello - there is all the refined study of this coloristic expression for which it is necessary to know how to restore color not only in its violence, but above all in its harmony. For this reason, Silvio Benco wrote, some time ago, on a critical note: «... a vast and restful general harmony, where nothing makes a stain, where everything undergoes the rule of the same perfectly intoned vision. Bruno Croatto's painting has no violence, no hard work. He had them. He solved them. He has overcome them. And what is left of it is a quiet mastery, a surprising mastery of the means and procedures of art, which allows Croatto to face the most various problems he poses with the same confidence of the eye and quickness of the hand. And, in fact, the Croatus himself, speaking to me, said that whatever he considers from the pictorial side, he must consider it both under the aspect of violence and under that of delicacy. A hand, for example: violence of lights and shadows, modeling force to make the most synthetic artist despair. And also: small delicious passages give so much sweetness and so much harmony to make the most analytical artist despair. And Bruno Croatto expressed, with this, a great aesthetic truth, because the hand above all the female hand is the point where all the callestenia of the woman is found, so much that at times, it is not the pure beauty of a face that strikes, but that of a white hand, soft, modeled, in fact, with lights and shadows and caresses. And Croatto, tries to render as much as he can the violence he encounters in nature and that "the good God" does with a ray of sunshine, and to temper it, however, always with a harmony based on color. It is not necessary, however, to be unilateral and content with one of these two aspects of nature: whoever relies on violence is crude, whoever relies on delicacy is soft. Bruno Croatto, with his temperance, has overcome the two aspects to achieve mastery and mastery. He is strong not like the wrestler who shows his muscles, but like the robust man who does not flaunt them. Everything in his painting is done at once. He must immediately represent the impression of the eye and the soul because tomorrow, he is no longer sure of "still being him". That green, perhaps tomorrow, can see it otherwise, and then the picture becomes tangled. But to succeed in two hours you have to have worked in life, a lot: it is the effect of a great experience and a formidable job security. While in the etching this rapid execution is not possible: the same procedure prevents it. The etching is not made by direct contact with nature, but is the translation of an impression based on notes and studies previously made from life: it is, therefore, work of imagination and memory on four lines drawn so much to preserve the memory of the impression. The first etchings of Bruno Croatto date back to 1909 - he started this particular kind of work relatively late - and draw their first inspiration from Orvieto, where he lived, working, for two years. The appearance of this sad medieval town did not seem suitable either for painting or for drawing: between that homogenous and monotonous tuff it was no longer possible to understand. Suddenly he had an idea like lightning: to reproduce what was around him with the etching of which, until then, he had not had the furthest knowledge. He escaped to Rome: at a table in the Aragno cafe, he made himself, in four words, explain the technical procedure of etching by a friend, bought the "tools of the trade" and returned to Orvieto. And he worked, perfecting himself, immediately adding, from the first plates, some of his personal procedures to improve the work. Then he continued to make embossed etching, working for long periods and for other long periods, neglecting it almost entirely. Today Bruno Croatto - after 200 plates - is a master of etching. With pure aquatint he makes the construction of things, the almost crepuscular evanescence of time and time - like his Venetian palaces -; with etching with a classic procedure, it makes the essential construction of objects with all their peculiarities and their accidentalness more vividly. Then, with its own system, it gets an almost pictorial softness in the etching, especially in the light parts. The measurement shown is of the painting without frame. Italian Fine Arts Authority must check this item in order to allow its exportation. This process lasts about 60 days.

Creator:
Bruno Croatto (Author)
Dimensions:
Height: 23.63 in (60 cm)Width: 19.69 in (50 cm)Depth: 0.4 in (1 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Wood,Oiled
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
1940-1949
Date of Manufacture:
1945
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Rome, IT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU4882115690281