Giovanni Lazzarini - Boats and Sailors

Social themes in art begin to gain prominence towards the middle of the 19th century, coinciding with the spread of the social question in various European societies. The work of painters such as Millet or Daumier, for example, favoured subjects related to life in the fields, factory work or strikes. In Italy, among the first painters deeply committed to social themes, we recall Pellizza da Volpedo and, in contemporary times, Renato Guttuso. Giovanni Lazzarini also fits into this line, and his preferred subjects are precisely fishermen and sailors, represented through his original and personal artistic language in which contemporaneity is combined with an authentic and sincere description of a typical social reality.

Giovanni Lazzarini's artistic production fits perfectly into a pictorial trend that combines realist themes with a predominantly expressionist language. Indeed, if the subject is focused on the world of work and the working classes, the style calls for a synthetic interpretation of reality. Everything is simplified to transfigure reality in an expressive and symbolic sense. One moves away from the particular to reach an iconic representation that has the characteristics of universality. The process of abstraction, therefore, is carried out by the painter to extract the essential from sensory data. The subject is thus resolved into a mechanomorphic reconstruction in a complex, multidimensional space. In this way, Lazzarini creates an image charged with primary, immutable values, thanks to expressive essentialism and chromatic strength. The compact application of colour tends towards monochrome and the light floods the entire scene, further crystallising it in a timeless dimension.

Giovanni Lazzarini was born in Viareggio in 1923 to a family of sailors. He turned to painting and sculpture, eventually leaving his previous job as a coachbuilder in 1976 to dedicate himself entirely to the profession of painter. At this point, he begins an activity of study and research to acquire a technique and style entirely his own. In 1991, on the already existing mural created in the 1970s, he frescoed the facade of the Viareggio Labour Chamber to celebrate the building's ninetieth anniversary. During the last years of his life, he experimented with various styles, as he had always done, incessantly seeking new languages that would satisfy him. He died on March 17, 2003, after adding one last brushstroke to the painting he was working on.

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