| The De Pisis collection of Aldo Palazzeschi

The value and the interest of the De Pisis paintings (which arrived at the University of Florence in 1976) induced the University to look for an adequate exposition space. With an agreement stipulated in 1979, the University lent the twelve paintings to the Contemporary Art Museum of Florence (still yet to be constructed)in order that they were exhibited together with the others Twentieth Century collections. The Municipality of Florence decided to institute every year a scholarship for the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in the name of Aldo Palazzeschi.
De Pisis and Palazzeschi met in 1925 in Paris, a city rich with cultural energies, and a guarantor of that freedom that many artists did not find in Italy.
The painter arrived in Paris after having spent his youth in Ferrara, where he participated artistically with De Chirico, Carrà and Morandi in the metaphisical experience.
Before arriving in Paris, De Pisis stayed in Rome for a few years, looking for horizons larger and more stimulating than the ones in Ferrara. The vivid and curious spirit of De Pisis made a deep impression on Aldo Palazzeschi, who compared the master to a butterfly.
The friendship between the two artists remained staunch even after the return of the two to Italy. This friendship is marked by the works bought by Palazzeschi, the first of which, the «Natura morta con vaso di fiori e libro», dated back to 1930. The paintings the «Veduta di San Giorgio a Venezia» and the «Veduta del Ponte di Rialto» have a dedication written on the reverse by De Pisis for Palazzeschi, dedications which testify to the mutual esteem of the two friends.
The lyricism of De Pisis painting excited admiration even from many other contemporary poets and literary men, all joined by a similar sensibility; many works of the painter from Ferrara were in the collections of Eugenio Montale, Curzio Malaparte, Sebastiano Timpanaro, and Roberto Longhi.
The French experience led De Pisis to discover the infinite chromatic and luminous variation of French Nineteenth Century painting, which had a great influence on this artist. However, the landscapes of his native country are always the sceneries of his works. The finest example of De Pisis art is the «Natura morta nel paesaggio di Pomposa», also known as «la Regina», of 1931. Another example is the «Natura morta con frutta e ananas», of 1931, where all the rules are subverted.
The influences of French paintings are evident in the delightful «Veduta di un Giardino a Saint Cloud» (1931), which offers a silent foreshortening of the park, dominated by the flourishing nature and by the mute presence of a statue.
The years spent by De Pisis in Venice, where the painter bought a house in 1944, are witnessed by the marvellous views (Veduta veneziana; Veduta del Ponte di Rialto a Venezia; Veduta di San Giorgio a Venezia). The three pictures, all of 1947, constitute the last section of the Palazzeschi collection; after a few years De Pisis was affected by neurological problems that led him to stop his work. He died in a clinic in Milan in 1956.


Daniela Parenti

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