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Lot Essay
Painted in 1943, the present work dates from the wartime period which is recognised by many as Morandi's greatest productive phase, when he executed his most splendid and meditative still life studies. Still relatively early in the development of the still life in Morandi's work, up until 1943 he produced a very small number of paintings in comparison to the explosion in numbers that would follow only a few years later. This was a time of evolution, invention, adaptation and of course contemplation. All these are evident in the increasingly abstract and deliberately unimposing manner in which Morandi's paintings conveyed a sense of the harmony and poetry of the visual world around us. With its gentle poise and absorbing lyrical harmony, this painting condenses the 'element of classical quiet and classical purity' that so fascinated Morandi (Morandi, quoted in J. Herman, 'A Visit to Morandi', pp. 26-27, in 'Giorgio Morandi: the dimension of inner space', exh. cat., Giorgio Morandi, Sydney, 1997, p. 27).
During the 1910s and 1920s, Morandi had been associated with various avant-garde Italian movements, and with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio de Chirico amongst others. However, he had found that the styles that were being developed to reflect the modern age were overbearing and diminished the atmosphere that he sought to convey. He pared away the stylistic advances, reaching a kernel of artistic truth that bridged the gap between the Old Masters such as Piero della Francesca, Vermeer or Chardin and the Metafisica atmosphere that informed the pictures of some of his contemporaries. He created his own brand of classicism, which he continued to develop over the following years.
'When most Italian artists of my own generation were afraid to be too "modern", too "international" in their style, not "national" or "imperial" enough, I was still left in peace, perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. My privacy was thus my protection and, in the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained but a provincial professor of etching, at the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna' (Morandi, quoted in E. Roditi, 'Interview with Giorgio Morandi', pp. 143-55 in K. Wilkin, Giorgio Morandi: Works, Writings and Interviews, Barcelona, 2007, p. 154).
During the 1910s and 1920s, Morandi had been associated with various avant-garde Italian movements, and with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio de Chirico amongst others. However, he had found that the styles that were being developed to reflect the modern age were overbearing and diminished the atmosphere that he sought to convey. He pared away the stylistic advances, reaching a kernel of artistic truth that bridged the gap between the Old Masters such as Piero della Francesca, Vermeer or Chardin and the Metafisica atmosphere that informed the pictures of some of his contemporaries. He created his own brand of classicism, which he continued to develop over the following years.
'When most Italian artists of my own generation were afraid to be too "modern", too "international" in their style, not "national" or "imperial" enough, I was still left in peace, perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. My privacy was thus my protection and, in the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained but a provincial professor of etching, at the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna' (Morandi, quoted in E. Roditi, 'Interview with Giorgio Morandi', pp. 143-55 in K. Wilkin, Giorgio Morandi: Works, Writings and Interviews, Barcelona, 2007, p. 154).