Time.news – It is an extraordinary and painful one reference to the drama of the war in Ukraine, Shipwreck, the painting by Massimo Giannoni that opens the exhibition ‘Abi illo tempore’ on display until March 25, in the Sala del Cenacolo of Palazzo Valdina, in the Chamber of Deputies, in Rome. It is a painful reminder of the war because the painting, an oil on canvas, depicts a library of a Ukrainian school, a school that in these terrible days was unfortunately bombed by the Russians. The books are on the floor, piled up, removed from the shelves, thrown down in a sprawling manner: “Like in a poet’s room, who takes the books and reads them and at the end of the day has read everything”, explains the author. The painting is one of the seven large canvases on display, all unpublished works, six of which have the Capitoline Museums as their subject: works that were born in the aftermath of a visit by the artist to Rome, left his Florence, when it was recently concluded. the toughest phase of confinement, during the pandemic.
“A show that is a tribute to Rome and the Capitoline Museums: a collection of unpublished works to celebrate the tradition of our culture that has its roots in classical art “, explained Federico Mollicone, head of culture at Fratelli d’Italia, one of the creators of the project. Oil paintings on canvas, painted with an ancient wisdom, “a painting that is an artistic expression rich in virtue and sensitivity, inspiring the man of eternity and beauty”.
Giannoni loves to paint libraries, rooms in natural museums, the seat of a stock exchange, still lifes, urban views: he wants to tell about beauty but also about human psychology. This time he wanted to paint the vast semi-deserted rooms, the rooms captured in memory during his visit to Rome, after months of forced immobility but in the euphoria of the post-pandemic awakening: he painted the rooms populated by ancient busts, the marble statues illuminated by the sun, the light just filtered by the large windows, images that appear as if crystallized in the solitude of the lockdown.
“At first glance, his work could be associated with figurative painting, but his technique based on a very dense mixture gives the work an almost abstract approach to a closer vision. The forms – explained Cesare Biasini Selvaggi , the curator of the exhibition together with Giovanna Caterina de Feo – they appear disjointed by sharp and angular contour lines, often intelligible only if looked at several steps away, a ‘middle ground in which images merge into their own abstraction “.
The exhibition was born from a project by Trait d’Union Onlus and Icas, the Parliamentary Intergroup ‘Culture, Art, Sport’, of which Mollicone is one of the founders. Elena Guerri dall’Oro, president of the non-profit organization, clearly explained the reason for choosing the Vicolo Valdina complex. “Rome is very dear to our non-profit organization, so much so that more than ten years ago it pushed us to start with the purpose of contrasting its urban decay and at the same time bringing art and culture outside the usual museum circuits; the aim is to meet a wider audience, in places such as squares, gardens, various types of agora, institutional buildings “.
The satisfaction of Fabio Rampelli, vice president of the Chamber is undeniable: “After two years of suspension of cultural and association activities, of closure to the public, of quota entrances, due to the containment measures of the pandemic, reopen with an art exhibition not could only have a liberating force. The Chamber of Deputies, considered by all to be ‘only’ the temple of democracy, has for some years also been carrying out an intense cultural and association promotion activity. never suspended- it constituted the mending of a speech interrupted in spite of ourselves “. Hence great expectations frozen by the international scenarios. Unfortunately – admits Rampelli – the Russian-Ukrainian crisis “gave a different epilogue to this new beginning, forced to insert itself, like a poetic interval, between the end of one tragedy and the beginning of another. it is us and there is art, a universal language that does not need a common language because it reaches directly to the heart of humanity “