Giorgio Morandi

Morandi

The objects in Morand’s studio seen in photographs taken recently, appear to remain as constants though the moment and the man have passed.  Morandi’s switch from the clean opacity of Surrealism to his subsequent translucent and illusive impressions speaks to me about the inconstancy of time and ones own changing sense of it.  Surrealism requires us to invest faith in the solidity of a world that does not exist, it is an imagined world, a painted world, a mimetic world.

Morandi’s later works emphasize through fluctuating edge and transparency the quiver of mortality in the face of the infinite. In these works solid objects are made less so; but caught are the perennial, seasonal and daily shifts of light and shadow which are near to infinite compared to the limited moments of a single perception.  The light flickers and bends over the forms like players moving across a stage, where now only the props remain – the props and their painted echoes that mourn the moment in spite of the promise of the infinite.