Paolo Manaresi - Still Life

The "Still Life" genre emerged in the early 17th century. It consisted of compositions of inanimate subjects, most often flowers or fruit. While initially it was an opportunity for painters to experiment with naturalistic or photographic reproductions of reality, with contemporary art, the "Still Life" also became a way of interpreting reality. Indeed, as happened, for example, in the Cubist avant-garde or in Giorgio Morandi, the in-depth exploration of objects was aimed at a conceptual representation, taken beyond the mere sensory aspect.

This work is a significant example of the painter Paolo Manaresi's oeuvre and exemplifies his style. In this still life, one can see how the artist employs a remarkably painterly approach that almost unravels the objects' forms, imbuing them with vibrations that are simultaneously atmospheric and existential. Color plays a decisive role in this interpretation, applied with dense brushstrokes that overlap to create volumes and spaces. In short, Manaresi demonstrates a post-Impressionist maturity. The composition is compressed entirely into the foreground, allowing no spatial depth. The painter's aim is not to capture the tangible details of the objects, but to capture their very essence, their substance. To this end, the brushstrokes, rich in texture, intervene, which, despite the essentiality of the representation, fleshes out the objects, breaking them down into different planes, recording the vibrations of light and life within them.

Paolo Manaresi (Bologna, 1908 – 1991) was an Italian painter and printmaker. He graduated from high school and, from 1949, encouraged by Giorgio Morandi, devoted himself actively to printmaking. In 1950, he was invited to the Venice Biennale, where he returned in 1952. That same year, his first solo exhibition of etchings was held at the Galleria Cairolo in Milan. In 1963, he won the Olivetti Prize for his artistic production. In 1966, he was awarded a prize at the International Graphic Arts Exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Between 1962 and 1968, he participated in the Intergrafik exhibitions in Berlin and Warsaw. In 1970, the Galleria Nuova Loggia in Bologna dedicated a solo exhibition of his graphics; that same year, Manaresi was represented by a significant number of etchings in a large exhibition at the Museo Civico in Bologna. In 1978, the "Francesco Francia" Association, in collaboration with the Municipality of Bologna, dedicated a large retrospective to him, divided into two sections: one of paintings at the Civic Archaeological Museum, the other of his graphic works at the Gallery of Modern Art.

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