Talk:Jerry Ross (painter)
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Statement by Art Historian Clarice Zdanski, Milan, Italy (2004):
In Jerry Ross’s own words, his work ‘…is influenced by that school [the Macchiaioli] and the social verismo school, in general, in that my landscape painting is close to the earth and love of nature but also in that I love the oil sketch and the spontaneity of plain air painting...but also seeking a metaphysical component present in the Macchiaioli, namely an angst and spirituality linked to pathos and even sadness given the historic and revolutionary context of that period. In portraiture I strive for "effect" as did the I Macchiaioli and also I honor and respect woman, as they did, and their world, often apart and accomplishing useful work, rooted in nature and beauty’.
Even a brief look at his work reveals very close links with the aims and techniques of the Macchiaioli, an Italian school of painting associated with a group of artists who met at the Caffè Michelangelo in Florence around 1860. The Macchiaioli style can very approximately be described as a form of pre- or proto-Impressionism in which macchie, the Italian word for blotches or dabs, are used boldly, rejecting drawing and form in favour of overall effect. Like ‘Impressionism’, the name ‘Macchiaioli’ became ‘official’ after a critic of the Italian newspaper the Gazzetta del Popolo used the term to deride the style’s wilfully sketchy, indefinite qualities. Like many nineteenth century art movements, the Macchiaioli advocated an anti-academic form of painting that aimed to reproduce ‘un impressione del vero’ (Fattori (1)) , which is perhaps best left in Italian because it loses so much of its resonance when translated into English. In terms of art techniques, il vero can mean life, as in disegnare dal vero, life drawing or working from life. Here there are links with en plein air painting, another of the great revolutions in art in the nineteenth century. However, il vero is also the truth.
The painter Telemaco Signorini was the first to use the ‘macchia’ reference in a positive way, acknowledging a sense of group identity for the Macchiaioli through their technique, which abandoned traditional chiaroscuro to juxtapose color and shadow with color and light in ‘blotches’ that gave a sketchy, overall idea of effects. In this sense, the use of the word ‘macchia’ goes back much farther than the Gazzetta’s critic: the seventeenth century painter Luca Giordano referred to his initial studies of works as ‘macchie’, thus indicating that painters have always seen this way of working as a primary act in the creative process (2).
Signorini’s own title ‘studio di macchia’ for one of his works also picks up on this(3) . In any event, the innovations introduced by the Macchiaioli were not strictly technical or of form – they also involved subject matter. These painters wanted to get away from the religious or historical themes propagated by the academy in favour of the beauty of il vero – ‘the truth/life’, or perhaps we should even introduce ‘the real’ as in verismo or verism. A whole range of new subject matter exalting real life – domestic scenes, familiar settings and everyday life, the local countryside, rural and urban scenes, the war. Along with the nineteenth century’s rejection of the academy, we can also see a distinct discovery of what one Italian critic has called the ‘poetica del vero’, or ‘the poetics of the truth/life/realism’(4) . At the particular moment in history in which the Macchiaioli painters lived, the fight for Italian independence, this interest in the here and now was intimately bound up in intense social interest and a fiercely democratic political orientation. In fact, various members of the group had participated first hand in the Risorgimento, and A. Cecioni, G. Costa, G. Fattori, S. De Tivoli, T. Signorini and S. Lega had fought in battles in 1848 and 1859.
Nearly a century and a half later, Ross is still engaged in a search for il vero. His work is an invitation to look around us, to discover his work as well as Fattori’s or Signorini’s or Lega’s, and cherish the legacy they have left us, continuing a poetica del vero in our own day.
Notes:
1. La nuova enciclopedia dell’arte Garzanti, (Milan: Garzanti, 1986), 489.
2. Alessandro Marabottini, Vittorio Quercioli, eds., I Macchiaioli: Origine e affermazione della macchia 1865-70, catalogue to the exhibit at the Museo del Corso, Palazzo Cipolla, Rome, 16 May- 24 September 2000, (Rome: Edizioni De Luca, 2000), 13.
3. Ibid., cat. no. 4; other works in this catalogue that best convey the ‘macchia’ way of working are cat. nos. 10 and 11 (Signorini’s studies of a cemetery at Solferino and the Duomo in Milan, respectively), cat. nos. 26, 27 and 38 (Fattori’s and Lega’s studies on panels with colored grounds).
4. Renato Barilli et al., Il secondo ‘800 italiano: Le poetiche del vero, catalogue to the exhibit at the Palazzo Reale, Milan, 26 May – 11 September 1988, (Milan: Mazzotta, 1988; second ed., 1992).
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Should "Ross founded the popular Salon des Refuses art show" be "Ross helped found..."? I seem to recall Steve LaRiccia being involved right at the beginning as well. Oregondave2 (talk) 02:04, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
