Antonio Ligabue a Sorrento [ENG]
Antonio Ligabue a Sorrento [ENG]
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
SCROFA (SOW) [1930]
The Scrofa is one of Antonio Ligabue's earliest oil paintings.These were the years when Ligabue began to familiarise himself with this technique after meeting Marino Renato Mazzacurati from the Roman school. He was often resistant to taking Mazzacurati's advice and preferred to learn by observing him work in his studio.
You can tell this is a youthful work from at least two characteristics. First is the choice of support: not a classic canvas, the tool of an established painter, but simple plywood, which is cheaper and easier to find. Second is the way the subject is treated: with realistic attention but in a simplified, stiff, profile pose, almost like an illustrated silhouette in a children's book. Despite the minimal surrounding scene, there is a note of drama added by the large black shadow cast at the pig's feet.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
ARATURA (PLOUGHING) [1934]Â
Compared to the previous painting, the sow, in this ploughing we can see new elements that reveal the gradual development of a painter.
The oxen, in particular, are depicted with notable complexity. They are no longer just horizontal silhouettes but are positioned with a sense of perspective. The careful representation of these animals contrasts sharply with the extreme simplification of the ploughman, the only human subject in the painting, aside from the carter in the background. Depicting the human figure in its natural context is certainly complex, especially for someone who is largely self-taught. Ligabue often approached this challenge in a simplified, caricature-like manner, except when it came to portraits, as we shall see.
In the background, the rural landscape begins to appear, the meticulous description of which will be one of our painter's distinctive features.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
CAVALLI ALL’ARATRO (HORSES AT THE PLOUGH) [1952]
While in the sow the subject was singular and in the ploughing the various characters were essentially independent of each other, here the scene directly involves all the protagonists, creating a particularly dramatic and dynamic overall effect.
The theme of the bolting horses allows Ligabue to express emotions of great intensity in his painting: the fear of the peasants raising their arms to the sky, the irrational and dangerous panic of the horses, and the feral aggression of the dog leaping towards them.
Three approaches alternate and coexist in the painting: a focus on the anatomy of the animal bodies, especially the horses; a caricature-like rendering of the human figures; and the use of schematic elements from popular prints to depict lightning and rain.
It is clear that, for the artist, the main protagonists are the animals. Perhaps they serve as an expression of his personal inner feelings, finding a form and a way to be released through them.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
FATTORIA (FARM) [1954]
If, after spending your entire youth in your homeland, you were forced to live in a totally different - sometimes almost hostile - place, what would you see when you looked at the horizon?
Ligabue saw Switzerland, where he was born and from which he was expelled at the age of 19 with no possibility of returning. This is why the landscapes in his paintings do not closely resemble those of the Po Valley around Gualtieri, the town where he moved. Instead, they blend these surroundings with his memories of the Alps. This mix explains the sharp-roofed towers in the distance—architecture that you wouldn't easily encounter while travelling along the Po River plain.
In a foreign environment, animals were his companions. He continued to pay close attention to outlining their colours, volumes, and muscles. Sometimes, he even captured their characteristic movements, such as those of the cow in the foreground.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
CACCIA AL CERVO (DEER HUNTING) [1945]
This painting dates back to the period when Ligabue was interned for the third time in the psychiatric hospital in Reggio Emilia.The Deer Hunt is probably a familiar image to you. It's a stereotype: a motif you may have seen before in a picture, engraving, illustration, or on an ornament..
Ligabue uses stereotypes in many of his works. However, he manages to give these familiar figures new life, infusing them with drama and a vigorous realism.
Even though these scenes are already stereotypes, Ligabue himself depicts them multiple times, creating a sense of endless combat through repetition.
But what does this struggle really represent? A stereotype can also be an archetype, depicting a feeling that resides within us. The continuous struggle seems to reference our unconscious, to drives that we may not be able to describe but can associate with the scene we see.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
RITRATTO DI ELBA (PORTRAIT OF ELBA) [1935]
While in his natural landscapes human figures seem to be more simplified, in portraits Ligabue depicts human figures without simplification, with the same care as for animals in the other works.
Elba's portrait juxtaposes idyll and a sombre note.
On one hand, we see a little girl in a colourful dress with wildflowers in the background. On the other, a storm cloud threatens the left corner of the painting, while light softly illuminates her pale, gaunt face. Some imagine the entrance to the cemetery of the village of Gualtieri at the end of the avenue on the right.
Legend has it that the portrait depicts a little girl who died after falling into a cauldron of hot water. In reality, it is Alda Bianchi, the daughter of two villagers, who died of illness in 1935.
Whether reality or legend, the tragedy explains the hints of unease we see in the painting.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
AUTORITRATTO (SELF-PORTRAIT) [1957]
Some people, when they start writing on a sheet of paper, realise towards the end of the sentence that they're running out of space. They then hurriedly adjust their handwriting to fit it all in. In this painting, and in other works by Ligabue, something similar likely occurred. In all his self-portraits, he always started with the eye, building the rest of the figure from there. During this process, perhaps realising too late that the space was insufficient, he improvised an original solution by distorting the elements in the lower part of the painting, like the legs and the stool.
In the lower part of the painting, the hand clutching a wine flask adds a playful tone to the overall composition. In these self-portraits, Ligabue not only bluntly displays his imperfections but often combines them with details or disguises that have an ironic and light-hearted air, such as in some portraits where he shows himself wearing different types of hats.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
AUTORITRATTO (SELF-PORTRAIT) [1954]
The self-portrait is one of Ligabue's most frequently painted subjects.
While paintings with animal or natural themes may allude to the emotions and impulses running through the painter's consciousness, in his self-portraits, Ligabue confronts us more directly.
In the imperfections of this face, which he outlines almost mercilessly, we can discern the signs of a challenging existence.
From the earliest months of his life, Ligabue's family faced financial hardship and resulting malnutrition, which led to him suffering from rickets, skull deformities, and stunted physical development. These legacies would impact his body and psyche for years to come. However, the power of these portraits also resides in their depiction of the invisible—such as the sense of loneliness and anguish that the artist communicates through his gaze and certain metaphorical details, like the solitary crow flying in the background.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
AUTORITRATTO (SELF-PORTRAIT) [1959]
The thinning hair and greying tones indicate that the painting can be placed in the last years of the painter's career. However, one thing remains constant over time: the pose. If you've noticed, it always remains the same.
Ligabue paints himself in a three-quarter profile, with his gaze directed towards his right, as if he were looking into a hypothetical mirror to observe himself.
In reality, as the years pass, he no longer needs this support, relying solely on memory. Nevertheless, he continues to represent himself in this way.
This choice could represent a form of ongoing reference to his early portraits, or it could be a means of capturing the sombre and restless expression that defines him. Alternatively, the painter might be truly delving into his inner self, reflecting not in a mirror but within his own painted image.
9 JUL 2024 · Audioguide by eArs
LEOPARDO SULLA ROCCIA (LEOPARD ON A ROCK) [1960]
Here, Ligabue abandons the animal fight theme for the moment to depict a Leopard in a majestic leap, in a luminous and elegant oil painting. Alongside the rural landscapes that blend the countryside of Emilia with the panoramas of Switzerland, Ligabue's paintings also present glimpses of wild and exotic nature, inhabited by tigers, gorillas, and leopards. Where do these subjects, so distant from the painter's own experience, originate?
Probably from zoology books, popular lithographs, children's illustrations, or from the cinema, which he greatly enjoyed. It's not surprising to learn that during fight scenes in movies, Ligabue rooted for the animals!
We cannot be certain because the painter did not directly copy from these sources. He portrayed animals from memory, demonstrating an impressive ability to mentally reconstruct scenes, evident in his meticulous attention to anatomical details and vivid depiction of movements.
Copyright 2024 - Spreaker Inc. an iHeartMedia Company