Italo De Grandi | Undated
Watercolour on paper | 26.5 x 36 cm
Period 1969-1984: The beauty of the world
Architecture | Characters
Inventory IDG-725 | Private
collection Photo L'Atelier De Grandi
Artistic features
Subject:
An almost instantaneous dawn on the Piazetta of Venice, where the luminous transparency of the atmosphere reigns supreme.
Composition:
Italo places the architectural elements (the floor of the square, the facade of the Doge's Palace, the facade of the Library and the two monumental columns) in such a way as to frame the essence of this work, namely the morning luminosity of the sky.
Medium:
Watercolour lends itself doubly to the subject matter of this work. It allows you to work very quickly, and therefore to capture the atmosphere of a particular moment. And its colours are essentially transparent, the water facilitating a distribution of pigments on the paper, so as to reflect the light directly, thus capturing a certain luminosity, even diffuse.
Pallet:
A range of colours in almost continuous gradation: here the shapes are not defined by contrast, but by reflection, because light and transparency dominate.
Light:
"There are painters who create light, and the light always carries them, no matter what they do or think. A luminous grace without haste, a patience at the transparent moment, a kind of prayer with beings - trees, mansions, hills, fruit, and you bathe in winged purity - suddenly this surface illuminates, gently illuminates and strengthens our approach. The hostility of the world has given way, ugliness, smallness do not exist."
Jacques Chessex, Venice, Album of watercolours by Italo De Grandi, Jean Genoud, Lausanne, 1993
Background
Period:
With the independence gained for their children, Italo and Vincent also find their own: they leave graphic arts and silkscreen printing and blossom in the plastic arts. Vincent expresses his imagination mainly through oil painting and drawing, exclusively in his studio. Italo, always on the subject, pursues his contemplation of landscape, his wonder in front of nature, and goes from oil painting to washing through watercolour, tempera, charcoal, lead pencil or sanguine and is initiated to sculpture in wrought iron.
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