Domenico Morelli

Main keys to penetrate the facies of ” painter philosopher ” of the painter D. Morelli is the importance of academic training had on him , often diminished by the role played by the innovator : despite the diversity of ways and forms will remain ” history painter ” , gender and more noble , triggering within the same “story” a decisive revolution , carried out by mixing the never repudiated suggestions palizziane – soon to be personalized cultured and refined a technique in the study of the French masters , by Paul Delaroche to Auguste Gendron – and reflections on literary sources of rare intensity. Illuminating in this sense the correspondence with Pasquale Villari , which gives us all the intellectual fervor , matrix purely romantic , the creative process morelliano1 .

The correspondence bears witness to the endless doubts, frantic research in books , the genesis of the numerous sketches and sensational inventions in their new nullified sources and models . This aspect well understood by his contemporaries more careful : Morelli not sudden . Each of his works is a mental journey .

When does a painting, he sets off behind an idea , the following floor plan, examine it , develops it , completes it. When it came picturesque expression , when it has the picture, this comes up all of a piece , which seems done in a day . But all there is , it is designed and intended . I do not think that there is only one of his paintings , which is the effect of a combination. And so it is that all his work is a different work , and deeply felt .

Therefore arise from this peculiarity of artist – intellectual relations of friendship prepended to business without hesitation – ” Mais vous aux Tenez peu succès , vous êtes le plus modest des artistes que j’ai jamais rencontré cinquante ans depuis que je vis au milieu d ‘ eux ” he wrote in an Goupil truth even a little ‘ exaggerated – and the constant search of the documentation to get a” historic environment ” true to the picture. Documents such as books, pictures , even objects, which often used to rebuild a dawning in the mind ever visited , and never wanted to visit .

Upon his arrival to bitterness for ” Répétitions ” of his works as “Toujours la même peinture pour un artiste , c’est de la machine” , and notes the difficulty with which separated itself from the works of which he was continually dissatisfied – ” all my framework should leave some remorse ” – reminiscent of the same attitudes of an artist who was introverted French Edgar Degas.

Consequent to these premises, his extraordinary capacity to renew the iconography more usual in an attempt to give a new emotional tension to its sources and to achieve the dignity of those ” thoughts of letters ” that will never do without.

A Morelli , therefore, never equal to itself – ” j’espère de marcher toujours en avant ,” he wrote – and prolific superb ” inventor ” of compositions , attitudes and always different characters , used to represent the well-known figures and things unseen , but imagine and true at the same time .