The faces of " immortal " by Gabriele Donelli
It harks back to the past and to the memory with a lyricism artist Gabriele Donelli Piacenza.
Animated by the same passion for the classics of contemporany literature and philosophy, as a modern Guttuso encounters in his artistic avant-garde writers of the caliber of Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Arthur Rimbaud, Samuel Beckett who know how to inspire new ideas and suggestions.
Attracted by witers and writers such as Italo Calvino, Alberto Moravia, Isabel Allende, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Eugenio Montale, Dino Campana to name a few, all - as he implies - " very original and quirky individuals who then had the considerable inner qualities related to me " ; Donelli approaches also to the great portraitists of the twentieth century, are welcomed with his personal expression signs.
And here come the portraits of Georges Braque, Giorgio Morandi, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti, Renato Guttuso.
Portraits elegant as unusual with a marked and the desired two- dimensional shapes and spaces, typical of a dimension of imprinting Fauvist.
The peculiarity lies in the faces, sometimes incomplete and skinny, sometimes rich in details and the details that make an impression of timeless portrait.
Gabriele Donelli immerses you fully in the work of invention and elaboration of somatic physiognomy and character of the artists who reads, hears, lives. His is a more detailed work, study that led him to develop, meticulously every idea, every twist, every draft that the whale in the mind or that seems congenial to the idea that it was done by a specific author.
It is in these portraits, sometimes incomplete, which seems to lie the soul of the painter Piacenza.
Intuition and instinct fluidity in the pen and pencil, are part of its genuine representation of the real protagonists of emotionalism painting unique.
The use of the pastels is indicative of a status operands uncommon, as if to some extent back in the world of childhood and of his carelessness.
His drawings, crayon, pencil and acrylic, send at times - as he says - " something that recalls the making suggestive of lightness as a condition sweet and strange ".
In the eighties he painted mainly landscapes, even if it grows inside him clearly outlined and love for writing, which took him little time to compose several short stories and poems.
At the beginning of the millennium comes to a greater reflection of himself and his work, where even the way of making art suffers. " Rediscover the " Compositions " by finding a new way to represent certain moods, intimate and personal attitudes regarding often bound by gestures. These particular reasons are nothing more than a metaphysical character of the evolution, where the poetic intention that emerges here and there are plays of situations as opportunities hermetic now distant in time and memory ".
Self - taught passionate and methodical, Donelli began to draw as a child, always remaining true to himself and his simple but effective style, visible and recognizable thanks to its strong two - dimensionality of the faces and the poses portrayed that never expire mere caricature of the character in the painting, but they become in a moment, silent existential reflections.
In small areas there are the peculiarities exhibited traits of the characters, as if the artist comes into contact with the authors he read and loved it and translate his inner vision onto the canvas.
You can almost converse with those faces, those eyes, those facial features as well as special features, so as to understand immediately that we are looking beyond the frame.
But Donelli so, contradiction and particularity, it may or may not like, but never bring with it the indecision, the ambiguity of a feeling.
His portraits reveal sometimes rudeness, edginess, and even the " asymmetric geometry happy " typical of sensitive souls ( as written by Brandi at the Jeux de Cartes Stravinskij Guttuso ).
Everything is color, emotion tied to the signs, the musical interpretation of a face and its expression latent.
2012 Federica Giobbe
Gabriele Donelli must undoubtedly be a striking and charismatic character. I say " should " because I do not know, or rather, I perceive only through his work ( I see today for the first time ) , and through his autobiography, which came to me through an aseptic arrived file by e-mail, free of any direct emotional connotation.
I think this can be considered as a good means to express their opinion on a neutral Artist devoir of any direct empathic inference : the personality of the Artist is important, but it is the work that should speak first.
This is the impression from him that I fancy is in the mind of the first sight " reading " his work.
The painting that I see is soft, delicate, made of gentle colors and soft, pastel-colored, as he writes in his self- presentation : " willingly use pastels, as if I were in some way back when I was still a child ".
The ability to " return the child " god and see things simply through the eyes of a child and with no thought of the superstructure of an adult makes a difference : allows to reach the essentials with a few strokes and little color without having to use photographic minuteness in the story of the image that are used in other styles of portrait.
But beware : it is not, here, of a judgment on who is better than other techniques that use more defined and more defining : it is simply different. The art is always different and the basis from which to construct the Artist part leads to a different evolution of the type of expression of a work : you will have works based on a technique in charcoal, the other on a watercolor technique, other of painstaking research and photographic hyper- realist reality, and still other based on the disintegration of the real image fragmented into several parcels abstract enhanced and distorted by a lens or multifocal surreal, like, in Gabriele Donelli others in which the child's hand grasps the part ( for him ) essential view, in fact, the child makes the sign simple and shy with color.
Thanks for getting me bak with your work to a part of my childhood that was left at the bottom of a dusty desk drawer of my mind and that was " dusting " from years past now emerging in these lines .
2012 F. Lucertini
Homage to Pablo Picasso
The paintings of Donelli, " Homage to Pablo Picasso " clearly reveals the intentions, the creative nature of going, the goals which direct his painting : what are synthesis and release of the sign of the color.
In this hypothetical portrait of one of the greatest and most brilliant artists of our time, emblematic of a pictorial address clear of stylistic and formal impediments that derive from tradition, as suggested by the critical rhetoric of cultural backgrounds, already reflected the ' surge and the will of an artist who wants to be himself without pretense.
These colors that run through the face which depicts the great " Old " identify a liberating gesture but also the insight to give to those furrows color a connective meaning to the magnitude of Pablo.
That sign quickly and smoothly that outlines codest face seals a synthesis physiognomy of the character but it' s still time liberating and creative.
On the whole composition, the tone of the music vibrate colors already turns abstract, suggests spaced horizons in the fantastic.
Oscar Di Prata . Review artistic literary Brescia. November 1998
Display in the hall " City of Lodi "
The life and dynamism that Gabriele Donelli transmit to their paintings are the sesult of synthesis and the relationship between a sculptural design, incisive, which defines a refined draft plans of varied backgrounds coloristic.
Removes the bias currents and schools without ideological turmoil and thoughts, the art of Donelli is aimed at simplicity and understanding in term of better words.
His creativity almost always ranks as protagonist the human figure, painted on the canvas and stop to secure a meaningful job, in a balance of relations between space and breaks tonal painting, determination to overcome the strictly figurative diction to be open to solutions that often for their current approach is not out of tune with the current abstract.
Italo Siboni. The Citizen. Wednesday, january 12, 1994. Page 17 Culture & Society
Between man and nature : memories and images of a colorful
world and an inner world in the works of Gabriele Donelli
There was once a world of color.
There was once a world seen through the eyes of a child.
The paintings by Gabriele Donelli, an artist from Piacenza, ranging from landscapes to portraits.
The artist, in his views gives us memories of places loved and lived; shows the beauty and calmnees of lakes, rivers, observes the houses of the country, which, as in a fight of heights and in a blaze of color seem to want to outdo each other.
There is no landscape where it is inserted the human figure : the sights of nature, cities or countries are the absolute protagonists of this lively paintings.
In portraits instead, the artist focuses on the psychological characterization of important figures of art and literature, giving us a " deep reading " ; as if his painting, depending on the style adopted, it would symbolize the truth of their being, hidden from appearance.
Many landscapes, where you can see groups of houses put together, seem to suffer the style of Giacomo Malfanti ; Donelli in fact he attended his studio since the age of fourteen.
We find in the works of the artist, as in those of the teacher, the simplifield forms of the buildings, made with few and essential lines ; Donelli enriches tones particularly heated, close to the fauvist style of Matisse and Derain.
In fact, just like the fauves, at the beginning of the twentieth century they turned their feelings in colors, making use of a range of colors not natural, so it seems do Donelli to express themselves fully.
These houses, almost seem to come to life in their bright colors : a painting is the artist's emotional, it creates a sense of joyful and playful serenity in the observer.
While the drafting of flat tints, the buildings seem in motion, as if they wanted to gain more space in the places where they are located.
In " Homes near the river " for example, the colorful buildings seem to interpenetrate one another, giving the scene a connotation partly futuristic.
In " Desenzano del Garda ", the scene appears to be divided into two parts: the emerald lake with calm waters at the bottom of the composition, the boats on the right and above the houses vivid geometrical shapes: the scene is pervaded by a sense of calm and harmony of a quiet summer morning.
Very different work of several previous years, " Cottages near the hills " of 2001; the image is imbeud with a sense of suspended time, date from a few essential colors: the blue sky where they spend the white clouds, green-yellow hills and two cottages from the ocher.
Not only views of the lake and the countryside, but also some paintings dedicated to " Venise ": one of these is dominated by warm tones and orange, as if the sun was about to set and wrap with a warm hug the beautiful city; in another work, a night blue blanket and blue sea and protects the frame.
It also represented a Venice with a perspective cut plant photo: the shadow of the imposing houses on the right side, as if traveling along the junction of the canal aboard one of gondolas.
In " Carzano " (2014), the sky, made with bullies blue spots and red, gives the impression of fall and compress the underlyng colored houses, which are almost crushed and overwhelmed by the relentless forces of nature.
Unlike landscapes, portraits protagonist is the human figure, isolated in his individuality, in the privacy of his thoughts and of his troubles: in these compositions there is no setting or decorative element: only the man in front of himself.
The style of these works is quite varied: some seem dominated by a cubist facets and that breaks down the figure, other unreal colors, saturated, from the photographic cut-derived pop; still other are characterized by a distortion of the lines, in a yield existentialist to Francis Bacon.
Very impressive the " Self-portrait " of 1994, with the combination of two techniques: pastel and acrylic.
The human face appears segmented whether pastel, as if to underline the slow and continuous flow of thoughts in the mind.
Some portraits are dedicated to the genius of Pablo Picasso, in particular the work of 2007 gives us an image from the camera characterization and coloristic effect pop; in the portrait of 2009 it is instead represented a profile of Picasso, whose face, bold and provocative expression, is segmented by patches of color-feeling.
With a yield of comic derivation is outlined the face of the poet " Eugenio Montale ": work the focus of representation are the intense and thoughtful blue eyes, with which man observes reality drawing influences and inspiration for his compositions.
In the portrait of " Francis Bacon " as well as in that of " Van Gogh ", the color lines that outline the figures are mainly vertical and diagonal as if to underline the pathos, the sense of isolation and despair that characterizes the life and works of the two great artists.
Matrix Picasso appears opera " Three martians in supposition ": they gather around a table three emblematic figures, whose faces are apportioned to the cubist manner, as if to underline the complexity and therefore the incomprehensibility of their being.
Externals of visual data, the interiority of feelings: colors and shapes show us a vital nature, throbbing with energy and emotion. We pass by the feeling of nature to that of man, the illustrious personalities of art and literature that here, take off the mask of popularity that characterizes revealing instead on their own more significantly human.
2015 Mira Carboni
His poetics imbued with philosophical/ intimate reminiscences, combined with a pictorial technique that prefers acrylic on paper, reworks the typical styles cubist art, transforming them and adapting them to the needs of a modern concept of iconographic representation.
2018 Anna Rita Delucca
