Gregory Sciltian - Flora

Gregory Shiltyan (1900-1985) Grigory Ivanovich Shiltyan was born in Nakhichevan, near Rostov-on-Don (Armenia), on August 20, 1900. Born into a wealthy family—his father a lawyer and his mother a descendant of a wealthy Armenian industrial family—after finishing high school, he moved to Moscow, where he continued his classical studies at the Adolfi Gymnasium and began to devote himself to the study of the figurative arts. After completing his initial painting studies in St. Petersburg, he left Russia in 1919 and went to Vienna, attending the Academy of Fine Arts and assiduously visiting museums, drawn in particular by Italian Renaissance art. Around 1923, he settled in Rome, where a solo exhibition of his work was held at the Casa d'Arte Bragaglia, introduced by Roberto Longhi. In Rome, Sciltian met several Italian intellectuals and various painters, including Antonio Baldini, Antonio Donghi, and Giuseppe Capogrossi. At the home of the painter Nino Bertoletti, he met Giorgio De Chirico, with whom he immediately struck up a friendship. Regarding his first stay in Rome, Sciltian writes in his memoirs: "They were the last years of Baroque Rome, of pompous cardinals, of processions of hooded friars, of Caravaggio-esque policemen who were evoked by the fascists with caps and black bows, who strolled vigorously and noisily through the Roman streets. One could still see the painted carts pulled by donkeys led by the peasants, who came down from the Castelli Romani. In the Piazza di Spagna there were models in the picturesque costumes of Ciociaria. They were the last years of the romantic Rome of Pinelli and Léopold Robert, the Rome of Gogol, of Alexander Ivanov and Overbeck. People still rode in carriages, the taverns were overflowing with people tasting the wines of the Castelli. The wave of urbanization had not yet begun with the noise of scooters and cars, with neon lights, gas stations and bicycle thieves. In In 1924, Roman life continued to be a beautiful, flavorful, traditional seventeenth-century life. All around me were the masterpieces of the great masters who taught me to observe nature, to appreciate the picturesque and fascinating life that pulsated around me. In Piazza Capo di Ferro, next to Piazza Farnese, was the Pinacoteca di Palazzo Spada, full of Caravaggio paintings, and every morning, before beginning my work, I took a quick tour of the rooms. A stone's throw away was the church of San Luigi dei Francesi and next door the church of Sant'Agostino, with paintings by Caravaggio, Valentin, Bartolomeo Veneto, Holbein, and collections of marvelous drawings. Not a day went by that I didn't visit my Masters, and afterward I rushed full of fervor to my studio, to my easel and my palette. (Sciltian 1963, pp. 261-262) After participating in the 1926 Venice Biennale, where he exhibited his painting "Biondo corsaro" to great acclaim, he moved to Paris for a few years, painting primarily still lifes, common people, and everyday subjects influenced by 17th-century realism and aiming to reproduce, with photographic precision, the "illusion of reality." Having returned to Italy permanently in 1934, he exhibited extensively in private galleries. At the 1940 Milan Triennale, he won a gold medal with a trompe l'oeil painting titled Il mobile dipinto (The Painted Furniture), and in 1942 he exhibited several works at the Venice Biennale. After the war, he actively participated in the "Modern Painters of Reality" group, which opposed the emerging abstract languages, and with them he exhibited in 1947 at the Galleria dell'Illustrazione in Milan. His painting, reviving 18th-century Realism, successfully addressed all the major themes of the 20th century without bowing to the trends imposed by the avant-garde. Sciltian's portraits of dozens of high society figures from Rome, Milan, and the Veneto are extremely famous, as are his captivating trompe-l'oeil compositions that amaze the observer. In 1947, he also worked as an illustrator, creating several sets for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Teatro alla Scala. Having subsequently moved to Rome, on the Lungotevere Sanzio, he worked on an interesting theoretical text on painting, and died there on April 1, 1985, leaving a notable legacy of works in dozens of public and private collections. De Chirico wrote of him: "Gregorio Sciltian is the plastic artist par excellence. He is plastic when he paints, he is plastic when he speaks, he is plastic when he gesticulates"; De Chirico also defined him as "an oriental puppeteer" and a "creator of painted spectacles" (1941). Bibliography M. Bernardi, Gregorio Sciltian, «Modern Art», 1941, no. 7. R. Breda, 1890-1940, Artists and Exhibitions, Rome, Nuova Galleria Campo dei Fiori, 2001, p. 437. I. Brin, «Cinema», 10 September 1942, no. 149. R. Civello, Sciltian - Opera omnia, Milan, Hoepli, 1986. G. Comisso, Gregorio Sciltian, Milan, Hoepli, 1943. G. De Chirico, «Style in the Home and Furnishings», 1941, no. 4. F. De Pisis, «Bulletin of the Galleria del Milione», 1-15 April 1941, no. 72. O. Lejkind, K. Makhrov, D. Severjuchin, The Russian Revolution, St. Petersburg, Notabene, 1999, pp. 626-627. M. Marzaduri, D. Rizzi, Writings on Russian Futurism, Bern, Peter Lang, 1991. F. Miele, Sciltian - The Eternal Illusion, Rome, Roman Institute of Art and Culture, 1970. G. Ponti, Sciltian's 5 Deceptions, Milan, Garzanti, 1942. G. Tintori, Two Hundred Years of the Teatro alla Scala. Chronology of Operas-Ballets-Concerts 1778-1977, Bergamo, Ed. Grafica Gutenberg, 1979, pp. 113, 365-367, 372. M. Verdone, Sciltian in Rome, «Strenna dei Romanisti», 1986, pp. 597-608. G. Waldemar, Sciltian and the Magic of Reality, Milan, Lacca, 1950.

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