Galleria Nazionale D'arte Moderna: Paul Klee in Italy

Paul Klee (1922) photograph by Felix Klee Berna, Centre Paul Klee

I didn't find the exhibition on Paul Klee straight away, to get to the exhibition I had to go through the main collection and there where  many good art works in the main collection that I kept wondering around and got lost till I found myself in a darker room and then I realised that I was in the Paul Klee exhibition section but there where no signs indicating so from the inside of the main collection to the Paul Klee exhibition which I found peculiar & confusing still it was a well curated exhibition that focused on the influence of Paul Klee's six Italian trips and the influence they had on his art work such as the architecture, landscape, music and classicism. The exhibition is divided in sections: the First section I literally stumble into looks at the periods between 1902-1932 so included in his first trips to Rome,Naples, Florence and then Sicily. They also have a section on his relationship with the Bauhaus ( he thought between 1921 & 1930) while he was teaching there and with the futurism.  From the first trip he made satirical zinc etchings named Invenzioni or Inventions with a grotesque classicist inspiration, La Commedia dell' arte, inspired also by Greek mythology and clearly defined is L'eroe con l'ala below, a contemporary Icaro but mutilated who can't fly any more, representing the fragility of modern man. Most of his paintings and drawing that I saw in the exhibition where of a small scale.

Paul Klee The Hero With The Wing

 I think the strongest Italian influence on Paul Klee was the actual Italian landscape, its vibrant colours & architecture as we can see in Croci & Colonne, Crosses and Columns below  a watercolour on paper where there is strong influence of the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna with a juxtaposition of continually repeated warm and cold colours without any presence of volume so to highlight colour, a dance of colours, inner movement, light more then form while hinting or reviewing french pointillism and using fine lines.

Paul Klee Croci & Colonne 1931

Paul Klee's passion for the Italian landscape is shown again in the piece below; a watercolour of rich vibrant colours of the house where he was staying during his trip in Sicily.

Paul Klee Mazzaro' 1924

Then there is the Nocturnal Festivity, a feast of warm autumnal, earthy colours below. The richness of the oil colours show the painting as highly imaginative with a dream quality to it, they drew me in I kept going back and back to view the painting & I wasn't the only one other viewers where doing the same. I just wanted to be absorbed by the warmth, inner joy they where giving out. The simple way the house had been depicted reminded me of primitive art and the art made by children and again I noticed the importance of nature in Paul Klee's work and it made me think of how I paint my own works and which types of paints I use that it does make a gigantic difference using high quality long lasting paints.

Paul Klee Festa Notturna-Nocturnal festivity 1921

Galleria Nazionale D'arte Moderna: Leoncillo Leonardi

Leonardo Leoncilli

In the Galleria Nazionale D'Arte Moderna there are many rooms filled with real gems from paintings to conceptual works and I was happy to see that they had also included ceramics more specifically the work of the Italian artist Leonardo Leoncilli. I am interested in this particular artist not only because I work in ceramics myself but  for the wider scope and life he gave to a traditional method of working such as ceramics, he pushed it away from decorative  into the conceptual realm.

The work I saw in the Museum it's called: Bombardamento Notturno 1954 translated as Night Bombardment. It is of a large scale (I have never seen an abstract ceramic piece of such large scale before) is one of his best works and was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1954 the interesting part of it is that the artist made this ceramic piece of a mother protecting her child from the bombardments which are a realist image into a powerful abstract which is given by the large scale of the work of contorted clay figures combined with strong enamel colours, a metamorphosis of intertwined colours that expand upwards & around giving a sense of further space to the work. The structure itself with his roughness gives a sense of sheer life, torment and then death but also volume, physicality. He presents something you can not as a viewer simply walk away from both in the way the sculpture is made and in the concept he is presenting this is also due to the large scale and strong colours, you can't avoid it. The ceramic sculpture screams from every pore look at me you can't just walk away from what happened. Another powerful work is: La madre uccisa dai Tedeschi del 1944 translated as The Mother killed by the Germans he gives life to the figure by adding volume to the structure horizontally.

 

His initial works where realistic and had a natural feel to them but then he revolutionised them by deconstructing and breaking them, making them abstract as you can see below in Tempo Ferito II 1962 where the work intertwined there isn't a distinctive main figure.

It would have been interesting to see more of his work in the Galleria D'arte Moderna or indeed abroad I have never seen his work in England. His work made me think about how I make my own ceramics especially the scale of his art work. I could in the future work on a large scale in ceramics but that depends very much on space and in London I find that studio space is very hard to get due to high demand, lack of space and luck of funds so artists who are not wealthy can be limited on what they can produce if they live here and they don't have a specific commission running. This is I would say the negative  side of being an artist in London if one wants to do produce large sculptural or painting work it can be challenging to do, without a support network or basic funds as everything here is so expensive. So I am also working on a conceptual piece and with conceptual I can really use any area at my wish so that I can deal in  a positive way with external limitations while creating new work as it doesn't need a fixed place to be set up and I am not bound by external funds. Yes guerrilla conceptual art for me it's the way forward thought I will still make sculptures in ceramics and other materials.