Annigoni Pietro - Cristina

Portraiture is one of the most widespread artistic expressions, especially in painting, but also in sculpture, throughout all eras. Portraiture is, first and foremost, a description of the represented subject, an attempt to faithfully and naturally capture their physiognomy and individual characteristics. As artistic exploration gradually evolved, the physiognomic description of the subject was accompanied by a psychological one. Thus, over the centuries, portraiture has also become a means of introspective inquiry into the subject, their character, and their state of mind. The processes of abstraction introduced by contemporary art have further supported this type of inquiry.

Just as in his painting, we can also admire the technical skill of the painter Pietro Annigoni in his printmaking, which is of the highest quality, especially in his rendering of the human figure. Annigoni is an artist capable of a completely naturalistic rendering, characterized by an extremely high level of formal purity. Physiognomic features are represented with great truth in a soft, smooth form. The contours are indistinct, thanks to a sfumato that allows the subject to interact naturally with the space. The subject's interaction with space and their liveliness and mobility are then further accentuated by the striking contrast, often present in Annigoni's prints, between the smoothness of the faces and the indistinctness of the hair or clothing. In this way, Annigoni's artistic practice, while rooted in tradition, is imbued with contemporary expressive demands, whose modernity is evident precisely in the incompleteness and indeterminacy of the subject. Even in monochrome, we can also appreciate the interplay of light and shadow that highlights the volumetric substance of the figures.

Pietro Annigoni (Milan 1910 – Florence 1988). In 1947, together with Gregorio Sciltian and the Bueno brothers, he signed the “Manifesto of the Modern Painters of Reality,” which advocated full adherence to natural truth through the use of ancient techniques employed during the Renaissance. Annigoni's commitment to the naturalistic rendering of subjects led him to become a great portraitist, admired by the highest European dignitaries, to the extent that he was called the “painter of queens.”

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