Carlo Mattioli

Biography

Carlo Mattioli was born in Modena on May 8, 1925 and died in Parma, where the family had moved, on July 12, 1994. The beginnings are in the figurative field and, given the interest in literature, especially for poetry, he starts as an illustrator of books. He begins to establish himself in the early 60s with a painting that is between the formal and the informal. Mattioli, in his artistic activity, continues in cycles such as that of the nude or that of still lifes among which those with studies on the "Caravaggio basket" of which he performs numerous variations stand out. In the 70s Mattioli's attention was concentrated on the observation of nature with the cycles of the Beaches of Versilia, the poppy fields, the broom fields, etc. In these cycles his palette becomes material with often bright colours. He ends this cycle with that of the Aigues mortes, a bird's eye view of the marshes with iridescent shapes and colors. In the 1980s Mattioli continued with new cycles whose subjects were woods, pine forests and walls. Mattioli ends his activity using as a support now the page of an old manuscript, now old plates now old canvases to seal the feeling of time that passes inexorably. In his long and varied career as an artist, Mattioli has participated in various Venice Biennales as well as institutional exhibitions in Italy and abroad, of which we recall the one in 1985 at the Palazzo Reale in Milan or the one at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara. He was also a member of the Clementine Academy and the National Academy of San Luca. 

Carlo Mattioli - Arte Figurativa

Figurative Art refers to the kind of painting that is simply the representation of the reality that surrounds us or that is supposed to represent the work in its historical context. Often, therefore, the figurative work has a descriptive meaning, of events that happened, or allegorical. Under the Soviet blockade, and partly in Italy, figurative art was very conditioned by ideological constraints as it had to be understood by the masses and aimed at celebrating the successes, usually presumed, of the elites who ruled those countries. In Italy, Renato Guttuso was distinguished as he was able to develop a new language that resulted in works such as La Vucciria and Caffè Greco. Foreign artists include Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland, Lucian Freud, Otto Dix, George Grosz and others with a very personal interpretation of the subjects and pictorial technique