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REVIEWS
PROF. MARIO MONTEVERDI 1.1
A Perspective on Fiorella Bertuzzo’s Paintings: REALITY SUSPENDED IN SPACE
The landscape of contemporary painting is only clear in its obscurity. After genuine tensions, which reached their culmination in Social Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and the early stages of Pop Art, the art scene was dominated by a dishomogenous array of “revivals.” Instead of remaining faithful to the values generated by the original movements, they presumed to supplant their predecessors altogether with extreme sloppiness, eliminating complexity, reducing commitment, and seeking hasty solutions. This gave rise to transavantgarde movements as well as postmodern and “new new” trends (infantile names that further corroborate their cultural poverty and lack of imagination), characterized by a production that had the sole purpose of meeting the commercial demand, rather than reviving figuration in its integral dignity of shape and content, wholly disregarding the needs of the craft and almost making a mockery of culture and history.
What is an artist to do then who believes in the concreteness of the image to such extent as to confer upon it, simultaneously, a function of manifest visual perceptibility and, most essentially, of expression for their own deepest and innermost impulses?
They would have no other choice but to challenge the reality of the objects and induce them to lie suspended in a space that reflects the precarious foundations of our condition, encompassing our entire existence and affecting the artistic sphere, more or less dramatically.
Fiorella Bertuzzo was able to fully grasp this situation, although she is reluctant to admit it.
The landscape of contemporary painting is only clear in its obscurity. After genuine tensions, which reached their culmination in Social Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and the early stages of Pop Art, the art scene was dominated by a dishomogenous array of “revivals.” Instead of remaining faithful to the values generated by the original movements, they presumed to supplant their predecessors altogether with extreme sloppiness, eliminating complexity, reducing commitment, and seeking hasty solutions. This gave rise to transavantgarde movements as well as postmodern and “new new” trends (infantile names that further corroborate their cultural poverty and lack of imagination), characterized by a production that had the sole purpose of meeting the commercial demand, rather than reviving figuration in its integral dignity of shape and content, wholly disregarding the needs of the craft and almost making a mockery of culture and history.
What is an artist to do then who believes in the concreteness of the image to such extent as to confer upon it, simultaneously, a function of manifest visual perceptibility and, most essentially, of expression for their own deepest and innermost impulses?
They would have no other choice but to challenge the reality of the objects and induce them to lie suspended in a space that reflects the precarious foundations of our condition, encompassing our entire existence and affecting the artistic sphere, more or less dramatically.
Fiorella Bertuzzo was able to fully grasp this situation, although she is reluctant to admit it.
PROF. MARIO MONTEVERDI 1.2
Yet her art speaks for it, faithfully reflecting her need to ground her art in material objects, while at the same time experiencing them through the meanings they acquire beyond their objective appearance. In her every painting there is a specific, well-defined nucleus bordering on an overpowering hyperrealism, around which lights and colors fluctuate, as almost reduced to plasma, pure sensations. The suggestive power of this apparent antithesis does not merely stem from the juxtaposition of the finite and non-finite. Rather, it mostly emerges from the turmoil evoked by an image which is, per se, by no means unsettling, yet becomes the conduit to express the tensions that plague our consciousness, however hidden and imperceptible. As a consequence, every subject undergoes this analysis. The most innocent still life can become a denunciation or maybe a confession (which is nothing but a denunciation of our own selves). A landscape is a projection, a portrait, a sort of Dorian Gray, not construed in terms of the physical decadence from which we strive to escape by destroying our inner selves, but rather representing our fear of entrusting this effigy with the immutability of time, beyond an existence that continues to grow and consume itself.
Is it fair to attribute these meanings to painting? I think it is, in terms of the issues painting should address today. Such issues are not only of an aesthetic nature, yet through the aesthetic they dive ever deeper into the innermost corners of our minds. The beauty and gloss of color, the confident use of brushstrokes, the fullness of volumes, the brilliance of light in Bertuzzo’s paintings are worthy of note. However, what really matters is the authenticity of an impulse embodying, perhaps unwillingly, a reason for living, in which life is intended as action, participation.
Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings are testimony to her active engagement in life and if the objects she depicts find a match in the natural world, this means that the painter believes in life as nature’s expressive force and, through that, she taps into the only truth that does not arise from any dogma or imposition: the truth of poetry.
Is it fair to attribute these meanings to painting? I think it is, in terms of the issues painting should address today. Such issues are not only of an aesthetic nature, yet through the aesthetic they dive ever deeper into the innermost corners of our minds. The beauty and gloss of color, the confident use of brushstrokes, the fullness of volumes, the brilliance of light in Bertuzzo’s paintings are worthy of note. However, what really matters is the authenticity of an impulse embodying, perhaps unwillingly, a reason for living, in which life is intended as action, participation.
Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings are testimony to her active engagement in life and if the objects she depicts find a match in the natural world, this means that the painter believes in life as nature’s expressive force and, through that, she taps into the only truth that does not arise from any dogma or imposition: the truth of poetry.
PROF. VITTORIO SGARBI
Dear Madam,
The sensitivity that defines you, is reflected in your paintings full of warmth and poetry.
The sensitivity that defines you, is reflected in your paintings full of warmth and poetry.
PROF. CARLO MUNARI
FIORELLA BERTUZZO’S “LANDSCAPES”
Fiorella Bertuzzo’s “landscapes” inhabit an atmosphere which is neither ancient nor modern, but rather possesses a permanent quality, as it stems from the enchantment of the relationship she formed with nature. It is almost as if the act of creation could flow with absolute spontaneity, only when the artist was immersed in nature in complete pantheistic union. This is where Bertuzzo’s broad-scale spatial visions arise, embracing vast expanses of sky in the background, ranges of hills, vanishing points of plains interrupted by tree rows or intricate shrubs.
Certainly, in her formative years, Fiorella Bertuzzo paid careful attention to the most illustrious landscape artists, perhaps a few twentieth century masters, and undoubtedly Impressionist painters. Museums were also a subject of study for her. She felt a strong affinity for the sceneries depicted in the altarpieces of fifteenth century painters as well as the representations of the sixteenth century vedutisti. Instead of producing frigid imitations or hasty variations, however, she gained firm confidence in the legitimacy of her own approach.
As her pictorial language attains a level of resolute maturity, each image completes a “moment” in nature, which is finely tuned with an inner “moment.” The image unfolds similarly to a lyrical page, at times woven into the fabric of a solar equilibrium or sometimes faintly dimmed by tender melancholy, while, in other instances, it is crossed by a shiver of turmoil, almost fearing that such miracle be the omen of an imminent fatal decline.
One after the other, these lyrical pages compose a journal of the soul, recording an event and tuning it to the mutable chords of a vibratile sensitivity. Yet the message conveyed surpasses the limits of personal experience, captivating viewers and enveloping them in its compelling flow.
Fiorella Bertuzzo’s “landscapes” inhabit an atmosphere which is neither ancient nor modern, but rather possesses a permanent quality, as it stems from the enchantment of the relationship she formed with nature. It is almost as if the act of creation could flow with absolute spontaneity, only when the artist was immersed in nature in complete pantheistic union. This is where Bertuzzo’s broad-scale spatial visions arise, embracing vast expanses of sky in the background, ranges of hills, vanishing points of plains interrupted by tree rows or intricate shrubs.
Certainly, in her formative years, Fiorella Bertuzzo paid careful attention to the most illustrious landscape artists, perhaps a few twentieth century masters, and undoubtedly Impressionist painters. Museums were also a subject of study for her. She felt a strong affinity for the sceneries depicted in the altarpieces of fifteenth century painters as well as the representations of the sixteenth century vedutisti. Instead of producing frigid imitations or hasty variations, however, she gained firm confidence in the legitimacy of her own approach.
As her pictorial language attains a level of resolute maturity, each image completes a “moment” in nature, which is finely tuned with an inner “moment.” The image unfolds similarly to a lyrical page, at times woven into the fabric of a solar equilibrium or sometimes faintly dimmed by tender melancholy, while, in other instances, it is crossed by a shiver of turmoil, almost fearing that such miracle be the omen of an imminent fatal decline.
One after the other, these lyrical pages compose a journal of the soul, recording an event and tuning it to the mutable chords of a vibratile sensitivity. Yet the message conveyed surpasses the limits of personal experience, captivating viewers and enveloping them in its compelling flow.
TEODOSIO MARTUCCI 1
NATURE AND LIFE ENLIVENED BY THE STIMULUS OF EMOTIONS
“The Vicenza-born artist has developed her current painting style through her own personal journey. With conviction and experimentation, she dug into reality so as to decipher its contours of inner purification, combining it with the exceptional deftness of her brush technique. For her, the reality of painting is what truly matters, without useless frills or “accessories” take from sociological or philosophical digressions. Here lies the candor of her images, her ability to shape objects, chairs, bodies, without deforming them, but immersing them in atmospheres that are not sophisticated, yet genuine and powerful. Her research was a subject of study for important critics, such as Monteverdi, Munari, and Sgarbi, who emphasized the poetic intensity of her creativity in varying degrees. This quality is combined with a finely honed technique noticeable in the limpidity of color, free of all impurities, elegant even in its most exuberant outbursts. Her palette seems to implicitly pay homage to the great painting tradition of Venetian Renaissance art (Tiziano, Veronese, Giorgione). Then, undoubtedly, the artist elaborates her own dimension of shapes and interpretation. In this ideal space, her imagination addresses many subjects: from still lives, landscapes, and countryside views to the silent poetry of brief interior tales…”
“The Vicenza-born artist has developed her current painting style through her own personal journey. With conviction and experimentation, she dug into reality so as to decipher its contours of inner purification, combining it with the exceptional deftness of her brush technique. For her, the reality of painting is what truly matters, without useless frills or “accessories” take from sociological or philosophical digressions. Here lies the candor of her images, her ability to shape objects, chairs, bodies, without deforming them, but immersing them in atmospheres that are not sophisticated, yet genuine and powerful. Her research was a subject of study for important critics, such as Monteverdi, Munari, and Sgarbi, who emphasized the poetic intensity of her creativity in varying degrees. This quality is combined with a finely honed technique noticeable in the limpidity of color, free of all impurities, elegant even in its most exuberant outbursts. Her palette seems to implicitly pay homage to the great painting tradition of Venetian Renaissance art (Tiziano, Veronese, Giorgione). Then, undoubtedly, the artist elaborates her own dimension of shapes and interpretation. In this ideal space, her imagination addresses many subjects: from still lives, landscapes, and countryside views to the silent poetry of brief interior tales…”
TEODOSIO MARTUCCI 2
THE REALITY OF THOUGHT IN THE PURE LAMINATE OF LIGHT
"Her paintings depicting scenes ranging from “interiors” to highly personal interpretations of the female figure, from still lifes to landscapes, express this very desire to understand the invisible realm of emotions and the unpredictable and spontaneous movements of the mind. Her representations become poetic, sensitive transfigurations of impulses, stimuli that are not abstract, but weave the intangible patterns that form the fabric of human relationships. In terms of style, Bertuzzo’s paintings exhibit a marked figurative orientation, which is vibrant and luminous. Her art is instinctive and the ductility of her technical experience does not hinder, but rather fully enhances her natural inclination towards the pictorial dialogue. Her figurative choice is neither “New” or “Classical.” Rather than emulating the abstraction of certain artistic theories, it reflects her inner creative sphere, expressing her own psychological universe with intelligence and elegance. In this case, the artist’s figurative representation does not linger on the narrative or anecdotal, but draws nourishment from memories, the silent recollection of a thought, a perception, or desire, to which the figure provides a unique and most befitting frame."
"Her paintings depicting scenes ranging from “interiors” to highly personal interpretations of the female figure, from still lifes to landscapes, express this very desire to understand the invisible realm of emotions and the unpredictable and spontaneous movements of the mind. Her representations become poetic, sensitive transfigurations of impulses, stimuli that are not abstract, but weave the intangible patterns that form the fabric of human relationships. In terms of style, Bertuzzo’s paintings exhibit a marked figurative orientation, which is vibrant and luminous. Her art is instinctive and the ductility of her technical experience does not hinder, but rather fully enhances her natural inclination towards the pictorial dialogue. Her figurative choice is neither “New” or “Classical.” Rather than emulating the abstraction of certain artistic theories, it reflects her inner creative sphere, expressing her own psychological universe with intelligence and elegance. In this case, the artist’s figurative representation does not linger on the narrative or anecdotal, but draws nourishment from memories, the silent recollection of a thought, a perception, or desire, to which the figure provides a unique and most befitting frame."
PROF. MARIO MONTEVERDI 2.1
Reality and poetry coincide perfectly in Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings or, rather, the naturalistic painter is solely concerned with reality, its concrete aspects and its relations in terms of space, volume, color, and light, that is to say tone. If anything, poetry will be the summation of all these elements. When she finds herself before her subject, nothing else exists but the duty to reproduce it with the utmost faithfulness, while staying true to its content.
This is where the problem lies. Oftentimes a realistic painter inspired by Caravaggio or Pitocchetto, Velàzquez or Georges de la Tour, Zurbaràn or Baschenis, was able to transfer objects on canvas with impeccable mastery, by arranging them according to a carefully planned compositional rule. In the end, they fulfilled their intention of transposing three-dimensional reality onto two-dimensional fiction to perfection. What they lost however, was the poetic essence of their work.
Although she is not one of the great masters we mentioned earlier, Fiorella Bertuzzo is aware of this disconcerting phenomenon. Skills, technique, mastery of expressive media are extremely important, but they are not everything. On the contrary, they risk becoming superfluous, almost insignificant, unless they possess that imponderable quality, that undefinable spark called poetry. This is what transforms a landscape – which could be regarded as a mere illustrated postcard – into a passage of nature lit up by spirit; a portrait – which could compete with a perfect photomechanical reproduction – into a pulsating expression of humanity; a still life – that is to say a collection of humble domestic items – into the captivating presence of everyday objects experienced in light of the emotions they evoke in us.
It is quite clear that this genre of painting does not offer anything other than whatever “painted art” can offer. It seems necessary for me to use such an obvious definition, since nowadays those who try to paint with words (not poetic words, mind you, which, in themselves, could contribute to creating images, but abstruse reasoning, which merely possesses the aspiration and presumption of philosophical discourse, resulting almost always in arguments of petty conventionality and extremely poor intellectual content) far exceed those who tackle the all but negligible challenges imposed by a trade that is much more difficult than many others.
This is where the problem lies. Oftentimes a realistic painter inspired by Caravaggio or Pitocchetto, Velàzquez or Georges de la Tour, Zurbaràn or Baschenis, was able to transfer objects on canvas with impeccable mastery, by arranging them according to a carefully planned compositional rule. In the end, they fulfilled their intention of transposing three-dimensional reality onto two-dimensional fiction to perfection. What they lost however, was the poetic essence of their work.
Although she is not one of the great masters we mentioned earlier, Fiorella Bertuzzo is aware of this disconcerting phenomenon. Skills, technique, mastery of expressive media are extremely important, but they are not everything. On the contrary, they risk becoming superfluous, almost insignificant, unless they possess that imponderable quality, that undefinable spark called poetry. This is what transforms a landscape – which could be regarded as a mere illustrated postcard – into a passage of nature lit up by spirit; a portrait – which could compete with a perfect photomechanical reproduction – into a pulsating expression of humanity; a still life – that is to say a collection of humble domestic items – into the captivating presence of everyday objects experienced in light of the emotions they evoke in us.
It is quite clear that this genre of painting does not offer anything other than whatever “painted art” can offer. It seems necessary for me to use such an obvious definition, since nowadays those who try to paint with words (not poetic words, mind you, which, in themselves, could contribute to creating images, but abstruse reasoning, which merely possesses the aspiration and presumption of philosophical discourse, resulting almost always in arguments of petty conventionality and extremely poor intellectual content) far exceed those who tackle the all but negligible challenges imposed by a trade that is much more difficult than many others.
PROF. MARIO MONTEVERDI 2.2
Dedication and diligence are not enough to perform it adequately. Innate aptitudes of mind, eye, and thought are also needed. By thought I do not mean plummeting into the lucubrations I mentioned earlier, but rather think appropriately about the structure of the painting, such as its intonation, rhythm, and finally its raison d’être, that is to say the appearance coinciding with a content that is indeed poetic, because it was this very poetic stimulus that subconsciously generated the work.
This is where the poetry of Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings originates. It does not stem from a preexisting idea, the literary adaptation of a subject, or the presumption of turning her work into a sort of manifesto, nor does it claim to be the proclamation of an aesthetic theory or the poster of a movement destined to uncover the innermost secrets of the human mind. Poetry lies in the very nature of her paintings, just like it is found in the folds of everyday reality, the one which Pascoli discovered in the meanders of Urbino punctuated by the joyful cries of children, Leopardi detected in the spaces projecting beyond the hedge near his house, and Montale unexpectedly glimpsed in the blind fluttering of a butterfly unable to find an opening through the walls of a room.
Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings convey the charm of interiors full of those meanings they acquired during the flow of life. We perceive the sounds that bounce from one hill to another, where nature seems to have chosen the most suitable colors and volumes to set the tempo of its own harmony. We sense the warmth of feelings which cannot be compressed into the contours of an outline, but erupt like supremely eloquent cries or softer murmurs spoken by the tumid or tightened lips of the characters or the eyes that pierce the space marking it with cadences rich of emotions. There is also a relationship between interior and exterior, that is to say between the environment and a person captured in a fleeting attitude which connects them more directly with nature.
This is where the poetry of Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings originates. It does not stem from a preexisting idea, the literary adaptation of a subject, or the presumption of turning her work into a sort of manifesto, nor does it claim to be the proclamation of an aesthetic theory or the poster of a movement destined to uncover the innermost secrets of the human mind. Poetry lies in the very nature of her paintings, just like it is found in the folds of everyday reality, the one which Pascoli discovered in the meanders of Urbino punctuated by the joyful cries of children, Leopardi detected in the spaces projecting beyond the hedge near his house, and Montale unexpectedly glimpsed in the blind fluttering of a butterfly unable to find an opening through the walls of a room.
Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings convey the charm of interiors full of those meanings they acquired during the flow of life. We perceive the sounds that bounce from one hill to another, where nature seems to have chosen the most suitable colors and volumes to set the tempo of its own harmony. We sense the warmth of feelings which cannot be compressed into the contours of an outline, but erupt like supremely eloquent cries or softer murmurs spoken by the tumid or tightened lips of the characters or the eyes that pierce the space marking it with cadences rich of emotions. There is also a relationship between interior and exterior, that is to say between the environment and a person captured in a fleeting attitude which connects them more directly with nature.
PROF. MARIO MONTEVERDI 2.3
Following the example set by the Impressionist movement, this very quality led our Verismo tradition (very much alive, well within the confines of the current century, although moribund, especially in relation to the dignity of its own initial aesthetic aims) to free itself of its excessive adherence to anecdotes, illustrations, and all the elements that were the legacy of a pedestrian provincialism, a sterile prose, a trade without a poetic soul. Finally, in Fiorella Bertuzzo’s paintings, we are able to clearly perceive the values contained in the objects that are part of our daily surroundings, which we consume as they are integrated into our lifestyles or even our survival means. Their presence, which we take for granted in our visual household setting, is still capable of arousing the emotions that stem from recognizing the characteristics of our everyday existence. This existence is not only made of automatic and passive actions, but also of our continuous participation in the humblest events of life. Thanks to this very quality, they are rich in subtle meanings channeled through the subterranean paths of the unconscious vibrations emitted by feelings we are perhaps unable to define, but which are indissolubly connected with ourselves.
Regarding her style of painting as a mere “reproduction of reality” would be a very superficial and distracted way of approaching it. First of all, defining reality is always very difficult, unless our definitions are based on dogmatic assumptions. However, those who face the elusive and undeterminable world we call art, which is stimulated by another indefinable substance, poetry, cannot be in any way restricted by dogmas. They aim for freedom, of which imagination is the herald and flag, and, if we look closely, there is more imagination in recreating a plant offering a dialogue between light and shadow than making up an object that has no meaning. As a result, a painter who paints is always a messenger of freedom. This freedom re-asserts itself by coining a new language, a unique style.
Fiorella Bertuzzo does so with the utmost discretion. She harmonizes the composition, fuses the tones, builds the shapes by adapting to the needs of the space, follows its rhythm and accompanies its movements.
Regarding her style of painting as a mere “reproduction of reality” would be a very superficial and distracted way of approaching it. First of all, defining reality is always very difficult, unless our definitions are based on dogmatic assumptions. However, those who face the elusive and undeterminable world we call art, which is stimulated by another indefinable substance, poetry, cannot be in any way restricted by dogmas. They aim for freedom, of which imagination is the herald and flag, and, if we look closely, there is more imagination in recreating a plant offering a dialogue between light and shadow than making up an object that has no meaning. As a result, a painter who paints is always a messenger of freedom. This freedom re-asserts itself by coining a new language, a unique style.
Fiorella Bertuzzo does so with the utmost discretion. She harmonizes the composition, fuses the tones, builds the shapes by adapting to the needs of the space, follows its rhythm and accompanies its movements.
PROF. MARIO MONTEVERDI 2.4
In other words, she respects the secret geometries that are essential in the economy of a painting, without however letting herself be carried away by a pre-ordered abstract formula. She accepts abstraction whenever it feeds the spirit of reality and rejects abstractionism as an evasive mechanical expedient that legitimizes any arbitrariness.
Poetry is what this is, distilled by the alembic of reality, more difficult to identify, because it must be savored drop by drop. However, its perfume is tenacious and the resulting emotions are more persistent. Her painting lingers in us as a memory of things enjoyed in the enchantment of nature, the intimacy of our home, the warmth of a human relationship. Any subject, however, is a pretext for a deeper interpretation of objects and people, especially to uncover its secret poetic core. It is a fruit ready to blossom into a flower to continue a cycle of perpetual perfumed rebirths.
Poetry is what this is, distilled by the alembic of reality, more difficult to identify, because it must be savored drop by drop. However, its perfume is tenacious and the resulting emotions are more persistent. Her painting lingers in us as a memory of things enjoyed in the enchantment of nature, the intimacy of our home, the warmth of a human relationship. Any subject, however, is a pretext for a deeper interpretation of objects and people, especially to uncover its secret poetic core. It is a fruit ready to blossom into a flower to continue a cycle of perpetual perfumed rebirths.
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