The Easel

Archives: The Brooklyn Rail

26th November 2024

Giorgio Morandi: Time Suspended, part II

One critic suggests that no-one “has less to tell us about the 20th century than Morandi.” Working in his small Bologna apartment bedroom, he painted his bottles and vases with “a medieval attentiveness”. He showed them as mere geometric forms in an architecture. And yet they are irresistible as objects for contemplation. More than one writer has likened Morandi’s work to the great Zen painting Six Persimmons, described as “passion… congealed into a stupendous calm”.