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Claudio Sacchi
Claudio Sacchi (born in Pesaro December 19th 1953) He first attended the art school in Urbino, then continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti) in Florence. Fundamental to his education were the meetings and association with Pietro Annigoni from 1973 onwards and with Enrico del Bono from 1977. From 1977 his name was included in the archives of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz for 20th Century Italian art. In 1979, he collaborated with the Centre for Research and Divulgation (Centro di Ricerca e Divulgazione) of the art techniques of Mario Donizetti in Bergamo. From 1980 to 1982 he taught painting at the Spinelli school of restoration in Florence. In 1987, a thesis on "Claudio Sacchi" was debated at the University of Urbino, following suggestions by Pietro Zampetti, presented by Rita Mazzanti of the Faculty of Humanities for the School for specialisation in the History of Art. From 1989 to 1992 he collaborated on the drawings for the magazine "Florence Yesterday, today and tomorrow"(Firenze Ieri Oggi e Domani) edited by Newton Periodicals (Periodici). Since his first personal exhibition in 1977 in Florence, he has exhibited in 1977 in Florence, he has exhibited in the main cities of Italy(Milan, Bologna, Genoa, etc.) and abroad in Amsterdam, Monaco in Montecarlo, Nice, cannes and Gent. During his artistic career, he has received several extremely impoortant prizesand aknowledgements.
Some critic on the artist Still
life Cristoforo Munari style, between realism and the allegorical background of
vanitas? “Philosophical”
portraits Salvator Rosa style, whose figures are more concerned with coming
across as paragons of themselves than real people?
En travesty portraits that closely follow the great models of the
past, wearing, for instance, turbans as in a famous painting by Van Eyck?
English style portraits, whose basic academism is only slightly animated
by touches of modern vivacity? Thus introduced, Sacchi, an artist of formidable
technical virtuosity, could immediately seem to be an old-fashioned artist. Sacchi instead seems to simply repeat the legitimacy and
dignity of a traditional way of producing art that contemporary criticism has
for a long time absurdly wished to remove from our consciousness.
These attempts also failed with Sacchi because many are prepared to
admire traditional painting rather than the usual boring academic manifestations
of presumed off. Lack of training of the masses?
Perhaps, but we wonder why worthwhile universal art has to be directed at
only a closed “well trained” circle. I
doubt whether Giotto or Caravaggio thought of producing art only comprehensible
to an elite, courtiers at grips with intellectually sophisticated reading.
It could ring true if their works were only intended for the fortunate
few whereas they were mainly intended for the public, exhibited in churches to
be admired by countless people with no specific artistic training. Giotto and Caravaggio were both sophisticated and
“popular” at the same time. What
I admire most in Sacchi is his courage in still wishing to be sophisticated and
popular, like the great artists of the past, reconciling two terms that are only
too often antithetic in contemporary art. Either
one is intellectually sophisticated and unpopular, or popular and intellectually
“backward”. Compelled,
the majority of contemporary artists chose unpopularity.
They chose to please only a small cast of critics who are convinced that
they determine entire destinies of art. This
did not concern Sacchi. Whether or
not Sacchi’s choice is correct, it is at any rate a way of endeavouring to
solve this dramatic “popularity” crisis of contemporary art.
That is to say, Sacchi raises the issue of art as necessarily universal
communication, finding the bases of this linguistic koinë in dear old
tradition. As long as tradition
remains the most diffused, popular, widely understood language, it will always
be not the modern language par excellence but at least one of the admissible
modern languages. The fact that many choose traditional language is based on
two fundamental postulates: one is the mimesis of impartiality, of the
imitation of appearances just as we see them; the other is that of skill, of the
original conception of art, of the technical capacity that distinguishes artists
from non artists and provokes spontaneous admiration in those who do not dispose
of such a faculty. Contemporary
artists are convinced that as intellectuals they do not have to be excellent
craftsmen; Sacchi retorts that those who are not excellent craftsmen cannot be
intellectuals. Everyone, faced with
a conceptual work, thinks that they are capable of producing it materially;
nobody, in front of one of Sacchi’s works, could say that they could redo it
with the same capacity. Foregoing skill means foregoing grounds for “popular”
respect, an element that puts art onlookers in subjection.
Can a painter who reasons in this way be considered traditionalist,
striving to provide his honest, sharp contribution to the identity crisis in
contemporary art? One
name, at any rate, must be remembered among Sacchi’s modern examples: Pietro
Annigoni. Annigoni’s
training was sufficiently varied and complex to distinguish it from an Academic
image linked too closely to its 19th century past.
Annigoni had learnt the sublime skill of 16th century
Florentines, putting us among the “greats” in the world, to which he owes
much of his popularity; however, he was also an artist capable of instilling in
his impeccably classic shapes, subtle vibrations, sudden strokes and unexpected
flashes of a sensitivity not detached from the world but restless in a modern
way. Annigoni himself admitted his
ambiguity, asserting that he considered two artistic examples above all others,
one supreme and absolute and the other more corrosive and visceral: “in the
heavens Phidias, on the earth Magnasco”.
A rare, precious reference, that of Magnasco.
Who knows how many Italian artists among the “modernists” of
1945-1948 found room in their artistic knowledge, in the midst of dutiful niches
dedicated to Picasso, Cézanne, Gaugin or Matisse, also for Alessandro Magnasco;
who knows how many of them could imagine the original neurotic, tortured
agitation of signs, which then became typical of modern artistic feeling, of
Magnasco, a magnificent forerunner of many foreigners whom they now admire.
And when modernity becomes something of the past, it also becomes
eternity, an absolute and no longer relative value.
There is no art without skill, but skill is not always enough to produce
inspired art. It is common
knowledge that an artist like Annigoni was too skilful, identifying painting
with pure exhibitionism. However,
there are less “official” moments (drawings, preparatory sketches and
watercolours) with less need to show off at all costs, in which he manages to
revive an unconventional expressive bent, usually more intimate and sincere,
where the golden sixteenth century matrix fills with that 17th
century intensity that still appeals no end to modern man.
This is Annigoni for whom heavenly Phidias willingly dirties his hands
with earthly Magnasco, looking more and more like Sacchi according to a formal,
spiritual bond that is renewed every time we admire their works.
Vittorio Sgarbi
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