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拍品专文
Natura morta, 1960, belongs to a touching progression of still lives, in which Giorgio Morandi silently probed, with fascinated stubbornness, the image of a fluted, flared vase (Vitali, 1171 – 1184). Across the fourteen paintings, the fluted vase remained in the foreground, while Morandi imperceptibly shifted a few other vessels around it, subtly altering the formal, tonal and spatial composition of each still life. Of the series, the present Natura morta is the only one which Morandi chose to paint in a round format, albeit on a square canvas. Appearing deceptively simple, Natura morta encircles a subtle equilibrium of formal asymmetries, illustrating Morandi’s fascination for the abstract qualities of the real world.
Defying the perfection of its circular form, the composition of Natura morta appears off-centred, yet achieves its own internal harmony. The white vase, whose brightness claims the immediate focus of the composition, rests just below the middle of the circle and to its right. Yet the composition conveys a sense of balance that is partly achieved through the juxtaposition, next to the elegant, fluted white vase, of a functional and squat grey coffee pot, whose presence drags the focal point of the still life back towards its centre. The actual geometrical centre of the picture falls indeed onto the grey, rather dull surface of the coffee pot. This area of the painting, however, seems to find its raison d’être in its juxtaposition with the immaculate élan of the white vase, their contrast enhanced by a flaring orange strip of colour. The focus of the picture is thus once again pulled away from the centre towards the white vase, establishing an internal, formal tension to the still life. Vertically, another asymmetry unfolds: if in the upper left corner two conical forms push outwards, defying the limit of the circle, diametrically opposed to them a field of pure grey colour rarefies the space into abstraction, forcing the edge of the table into oblivion. In this case again, the horizontal central line of the picture is disputed between two elements of the picture, lifted up by the light emptiness of the grey whilst the mass of the forms bears down onto it.
Captured in the harmonious, infinite form of a circle, a battle of opposite forces bestows onto Natura morta an entrancing quality. Within the series of closely related still lives, Morandi explored the same, identical composition of the present work in another picture, in which he more conventionally adopted the entire, slightly rectangular, canvas as its visual field (Vitali, 1181). When compared to that more traditional equivalent, Natura morta appears all the more compelling for the formal accents brought to the composition by its circular framing. What interested Morandi was not to depict reality as it was, but rather to transcend it into a mental image, responding to abstract principles of contrasts and harmonies. The tondo format had been introduced in Renaissance art to honour in its perfection the Virgin Mary and Infant Child often depicted on deschi da parto, ceremonial trays that were offered to the mother after having given birth to a child. With Natura morta, Morandi seems to redefine the genre in modern terms, replacing the tondo’s religious celebration of the sacred mystery of birth, with the phenomenological mystery of secular representation. Around the entrancing world revealed by the tondo, lies - unashamed – the bare canvas, a sober reminder of the fundamental abstraction of Morandi’s painting.
Defying the perfection of its circular form, the composition of Natura morta appears off-centred, yet achieves its own internal harmony. The white vase, whose brightness claims the immediate focus of the composition, rests just below the middle of the circle and to its right. Yet the composition conveys a sense of balance that is partly achieved through the juxtaposition, next to the elegant, fluted white vase, of a functional and squat grey coffee pot, whose presence drags the focal point of the still life back towards its centre. The actual geometrical centre of the picture falls indeed onto the grey, rather dull surface of the coffee pot. This area of the painting, however, seems to find its raison d’être in its juxtaposition with the immaculate élan of the white vase, their contrast enhanced by a flaring orange strip of colour. The focus of the picture is thus once again pulled away from the centre towards the white vase, establishing an internal, formal tension to the still life. Vertically, another asymmetry unfolds: if in the upper left corner two conical forms push outwards, defying the limit of the circle, diametrically opposed to them a field of pure grey colour rarefies the space into abstraction, forcing the edge of the table into oblivion. In this case again, the horizontal central line of the picture is disputed between two elements of the picture, lifted up by the light emptiness of the grey whilst the mass of the forms bears down onto it.
Captured in the harmonious, infinite form of a circle, a battle of opposite forces bestows onto Natura morta an entrancing quality. Within the series of closely related still lives, Morandi explored the same, identical composition of the present work in another picture, in which he more conventionally adopted the entire, slightly rectangular, canvas as its visual field (Vitali, 1181). When compared to that more traditional equivalent, Natura morta appears all the more compelling for the formal accents brought to the composition by its circular framing. What interested Morandi was not to depict reality as it was, but rather to transcend it into a mental image, responding to abstract principles of contrasts and harmonies. The tondo format had been introduced in Renaissance art to honour in its perfection the Virgin Mary and Infant Child often depicted on deschi da parto, ceremonial trays that were offered to the mother after having given birth to a child. With Natura morta, Morandi seems to redefine the genre in modern terms, replacing the tondo’s religious celebration of the sacred mystery of birth, with the phenomenological mystery of secular representation. Around the entrancing world revealed by the tondo, lies - unashamed – the bare canvas, a sober reminder of the fundamental abstraction of Morandi’s painting.