Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Italian painter best known for his traditional methods and his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:15How early in life did you decide that you must be an artist?
At about the age of six. When [I had] sketched something, my father saw it and told me that I would be a great painter. I was very impressed with this word and since then, really, I wanted to be a painter.
Presenter asks
0:33I believe you didn't find your formal art training very helpful. You preferred to study on your own.
Yes, because uh … time in the school of art began the invasion of the modern ideas. And I didn't find that classic way of teaching that I need.
Presenter asks
2:07When did you give your first one-man exhibition?
It was in 1932 in Florence.
Presenter asks
3:37You're one of the most famous painters of the day, but also one of the most criticised. The critics say that your portraits in particular are chocolate boxy and that sort of thing. Does that criticism worry you?
Not really. After all, I got the admiration of a man like Bernard Berenson.
Presenter asks
4:25How do you apportion your time between working on commission pictures and working on the work that you've set yourself to do?
That doesn't also worry me because I am not painting many portraits in a year. I would say three or four at the maximum on that roll. Natural.
Presenter asks
5:05Is it not true that you were brought up in an anti-clerical household?
Yes, that's true. But in any case, anti-clerical doesn't mean anti-religious. I am myself rather agnostic, but with a great nostalgia for religion.
Presenter asks
5:18Are you fascinated by the macabre?
I am more fascinated by the life that's still there. Part of the life.
Presenter asks
5:35Do you really think life is as horrific as that [in your allegorical picture]?
Very often. I think that everyone opening the newspaper in the morning can realize that everyday life is like that in some part of the world.
“I was very impressed with this word and since then, really, I wanted to be a painter.”
“I think that Impressionism is much more like a sunset of a great period instead of a dawn of the modern art. And many modern things are also important for me as a symptom of a very bad disease of the present society.”
“I went around Albourne Street and all the galleries there because I wanted to have one man show in London, but no one was really interested.”
“Not really. After all, I got the admiration of a man like Bernard Berenson.”
“I am myself rather agnostic, but with a great nostalgia for religion.”
“I think that everyone opening the newspaper in the morning can realize that everyday life is like that in some part of the world.”