Giovanni Lazzarini - Boats and Sailors

Social themes in art began to gain prominence in the mid-19th century, coinciding with the spread of social questions throughout European societies. The work of painters such as Millet and Daumier, for example, favored subjects related to life in the fields, factory work, or strikes. In Italy, among the first painters to engage deeply with social themes were Pellizza da Volpedo and, in the contemporary era, Renato Guttuso. Giovanni Lazzarini also followed this trend, and his favorite subjects were fishermen and sailors, depicted through his original and personal artistic language, which combines contemporaneity with an authentic and sincere description of a typical social reality.

Giovanni Lazzarini's artistic production fits perfectly into a pictorial movement that combines realist themes with a predominantly expressionist language. Indeed, if the subject matter is 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. The process of abstraction is thus conducted by the painter to extract the essence from sensory data. The subject is thus resolved in a mechanomorphic reconstruction within a complex, multidimensional space. In this way, Lazzarini creates an image charged with primary, immutable values, thanks to its expressive simplicity and chromatic power. The compact application of color tends toward monochrome, and light invades the entire scene, further crystallizing 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 tank driver in 1976 to devote himself entirely to painting. He then began a process of study and research to develop his own technique and style. In 1991, he frescoed the façade of the Viareggio Chamber of Labour, based on an existing mural created in the 1970s, to celebrate the building's ninetieth anniversary. During the last years of his life, he experimented with various styles, as he always did, constantly seeking new languages ​​that satisfied him. He died on March 17, 2003, after putting the final brushstroke to the painting he was working on.

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