The atmosphere of the great musician conveyed through the paintings of Vittorio Ferrarini and Ferdinando Quintavalla
A journey into the world of Giuseppe Verdi, not only through the scenes of the works of the great composer of Busseto, but also landscapes and the atmosphere of his homeland: Emilia. Now, through a retrospective selection of their paintings, two artists, Vittorio Ferrarini and Ferdinando Quintavalla, both from Parma and long time friends, have decided to bring it to Prague.
The exhibition, significantly entitled, “Verdian lands”, was hosted by the Italian Institute of Culture, which provided an elegant and utterly appropriate space, with its baroque chapel and the Chapter House. The inauguration took place in the presence of the Ambassador of Italy, Aldo Amati, and the Director of the Institute itself, Giovanni Sciola, during an event which, as underlined, also marked the start of the new season of activities at the Italský kulturní institut.
Ferrarini – “Entrepreneur and Artist”, as he briefly defines himself, is a painter who has a special relationship with Prague, the city where he spent a significant phase of his life and professional career in the late nineties, and the beginning of this millennium. It was during the period lived in the “Golden City”, while engaged in entrepreneurial activity, when he rediscovered his youthful passion for painting, and decided not to abandon it any more. Since then his life has largely been largely devoted to his love for art.
Over the past ten his career as a painter has undergone a whole series of significant phases, from the first exhibitions in Parma, before even reaching Paris, for the prestigious Carrousel du Louvre, where six years ago two of his works were displayed. The audience in Prague also had the opportunity to appreciate the quality, thanks to two solo exhibitions, the first being in 2008 and second in 2010, both at the Italian Institute of Culture. A series of works by Ferrarini have since been exposed permanently in Prague, at the headquarters of the Italian business group IBC, thanks to the old friendship between the artist and Giovanni Piazzini Albani, president of Ponte Carlo Holding.
The artistic style expressed by Ferrarini is typically one of materials, linked to the land, which he explains referring to the rural origins of his family. “I come from a family of farmers and I too as a boy, during the school holidays, used to work in the fields. It is precisely this atmosphere that my works uncoincidentally express”, as he himself explained.
His art in essence, is describing Mother Nature, “perhaps in the chromatic explosion of an agricultural landscape, inflamed by the sun”, as the critic Enrico Sgarbi wrote.
The works exhibited in Prague on this occasion by Ferrarini have provided further proof. The Emilian and Verdian region, its verdant landscapes, lush fruit and wheat fields. All in 25 paintings, almost all large and with a huge chromatic effect.
On the other hand, for Ferdinando Quintavalla the Prague exhibition experience was a first, despite having also participated in numerous international exhibitions in his career, obtaining flattering success with both critics and audiences. An artist of notable and recognized creative ability, his career began when he was very young, and today his works can be found in private collections in Italy and abroad.
Quintavalla is known to be an artist of meticulous precision. He dedicates himself to a single work for months, managing to achieve an effect of particular realism, which some critics have called, in a positive sense, “almost photographic”.
In Prague he presented 27 paintings, 24 of which were free interpretations of many works of Giuseppe Verdi, and three still life paintings, “a genre that has been part of my repertoire in recent years,” as he explained. During the opening event Quintavalla especially stressed the relationship of admiration that links him to Verdi, which prompted him to translate the work of the great musician into images, and theatrical scenarios.
It is no coincidence that in 2003 the Department of Culture of the town of Parma, on the occasion of the commemoration of the death of Giuseppe Verdi, hosted, in the San Ludovico Gallery, an exhibition entitled “Emotions for Verdi”. The same emotions that Quintavalla wanted to convey to the public in Prague.
by Giovanni Usai
