At the time of his death in 1964, Italian painter Giorgio Morandi was universally regarded as the greatest Italian painter of his time,¹ yet the work that had made him famous was notably lacking in grandiosity. “I am essentially a painter of the kind of still life composition that communicates a sense of tranquility and privacy,” he said, “moods which I have always valued above all else.”²

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1939, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection.

The show Morandi: Master of Modern Still Life, at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. through May 24th, reveals surprising views of the way Morandi’s art takes its “side-door” entrance to greatness. The improbability of the power of the small paintings in this show is a large part of their intrigue.

Morandi’s life-long focus on the expressive value of still life paintings draws attention to a paradoxical ambition at the heart of his art: finitude. The Italian term for the genre of still life painting, natura morta (literally “dead nature”), brings to mind the vague association between restraint and fruitfulness. Correspondingly, Morandi saw the limited circumstances of his life as essential to the production of his paintings. “I have always led a very quiet and retiring life…My only ambition is to enjoy the peace and quiet which I require in order to work.”³

One of the show’s most satisfying aspects is the way it inclines the viewer to contemplate the cumulative value of a quiet life. Viewers of this show who, thanks to dire economic news, have downsizing and forced frugality on their minds, will find some encouragement in carefully looking at the work of an artist who welcomed constraints.

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1943, Oil on Canvas, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Take, for example, a typical still life (right) painted in 1943 that shows the way Morandi places small visual moments in a context that makes them a wonder. First, the very diminutive dimensions of the nine-by-fourteen-inch canvas invite (even require) a closer look. Just as silence creates the condition in which to appreciate a whisper, the setting for the objects in this painting is muted, both in form and color.

Barely visible brush marks in the background show the movements of paint around the objects, revealing the act of their “making” and, simultaneously, making them stand out individually. The most beautiful moment involves the scalloped, purple twists and turns in the porcelain cup. They catch the viewer’s attention in part because Morandi has carefully determined that the other high intensity color in the composition be yellow, purple’s strong complement.

The allure of this small painting of simple objects raises intriguing questions about the power of art. For example, how does this type of painting subvert the expectation that significant cultural expressions must be extravagant (the standard of that thinking summed up in the cliché, “art is a luxury”)? Why does a small painting of fragile vessels, made during the tumultuous last year of Italian Fascism, continue to fascinate and satisfy while more imposing cultural constructions of that period have long since crumbled?

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1826, Oil on Canvas, View from the Farnese Gardens, Rome, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Giorgio Morandi, Landscape with Houses, 1941, Oil on Canvas, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, L.F. Collection.

One answer lies in the way Morandi viewed tradition. In contrast to the Italian Fascists’ self-serving appropriation of cultural heritage, Morandi did not look to the art of the past for monuments of aggrandizing cultural power. Morandi was fascinated with work by artists whose breakthroughs depended on their abilities to find significance in that which lacks prominence. For example, Morandi’s study in the 1920s and 30s (mostly through black-and-white reproductions) of the French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was based on his admiration of Corot’s “revolutionary abilities to animate motifs from nature that were inexpressive in themselves.”⁴

In accounting for the artists who most influenced him, Morandi said, “even in a simple subject, a great painter can achieve majesty of vision and an intensity of feeling to which we immediately respond.”⁵ It was an artist’s approach to subjects that interested him, not the subject matter or content of the work itself. “Nothing is more alien to me than an art which sets out to serve other purposes than those implied in the work.”⁶ Outstanding examples of work by the 18th- and 19th-century artists who influenced Morandi can be seen in other galleries of The Phillips, which Duncan Phillips founded in 1921 as America’s first museum of modern art.

Giorgio Morandi, Self-portrait, 1924, Oil on Canvas, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contempor- anea di Trento e Rovereto, L.F. Collection.

Morandi strictly shaped his life to leave space for long visual inquiries into the appearance of the objects and landscapes around him. In his creative process, he would often work in series, making small changes in the arrangement of objects, the light, and the size of the canvas. To avoid repeating himself (which he felt was a great danger), he would spend a long time comparing different arrangements before he painted them. He refined his paintings by looking for new balance and harmonies.

Critics have compared the compressed and distilled quality of Morandi’s work to poetry.  For example, Holland Cotter wrote last year in The New York Times, “(a)spirants to the role of painter-as-poet are many. Giorgio Morandi was the real thing.”⁷ That comparison is helpful because it creates the expectation that, like receiving the pleasure of a poem, the viewing of the paintings in this show cannot be rushed. Morandi painted with intense visual honesty, coherence, and integrity, but in reproduction his works often fail to convey the impact of the original. Because of the relative quiet of his work (when compared to contemporary visual culture), a stillness of eye is required to catch the murmur of subtle vibrations in color, which are one of these paintings’ great pleasures.

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1960, Oil on Canvas, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Giovanardi Collection.

For example, the luminous white of the bottle in this 1960 still life (left) caused me to desire one last look as I turned to leave the exhibition.  Following Morandi’s visual cues in this painting, gathering my view together and guiding it to the center, I noticed the easily overlooked blues and pinks behind what had appeared from a distance to be “plain” white. Visitors to the artist’s studio observed that Morandi’s paintings would sometimes begin with bright colors that, when later concealed by subsequent layers of paint, gave an “inner” warmth to the work.⁸ I think that insight into his working process is a key to understanding the paradoxically reserved passion that is felt through these paintings.

I recommend a visit to The Phillips on a Thursday evening, when the collection stays open until 8:30 p.m. The time when a day’s work is done and rest is near probably has the greatest store of the expansive and unhurried moments suited for viewing Morandi’s art.  As white flowers at that time of day reflect the light of twilight, these paintings promise an offering from the quiet life that made them.

¹ Flavio Fergonzi and Elisabetta Barisoni, Morandi: Master of Modern Still Life (Washington, DC: The Phillips Collection, 2009), 12.
² Edouard Roditi, Dialogues in Art (New York: Horizon Press, 1961), 52.
³ Ibid., 58.
⁴ Fergonzi and Barisoni, Morandi, 27.
⁵ Roditi, Dialogues in Art, 63.
⁶ Ibid., 54.
⁷ Holland Cotter, “All That Life Contains, Contained,” nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/arts/design/19mora.html?scp=1&sq=morandi&st=cse. <3.24.2009>
⁸ Roditi, Dialogues in Art, 64.

James Schaefer is a student at Westminster Theological Seminary who also works with The Gospel & Culture Project. Morandi: Master of Modern Still Life runs through May 24, 2009 at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.