User: Maria Laura Petruzzellis
Institution: University of Florence
The project investigated the materials employed by Giorgio Morandi in the making of nine1 oil paintings property of the Morandi Museum in Bologna. The museum houses the widest and more significant public collection dedicated to Giorgio Morandi, with approximately 250 works testifying the evolution of the painter’s oeuvre.
Despite Giorgio Morandi’s great reputation, his artistic technique has never been studied. Thanks to this project we moved a step forward in the knowledge regarding painter’s art. We intersected the data collected during the ongoing PhD project (2019-2022) on the materials and artistic technique employed by the painter, in the frame of the Doctorate School in History of Art and Performances at University of Florence, in collaboration with the University of Siena and University of Pisa.
Thanks to the analyses the main paints employed by Morandi have been described and successfully compared to the materials catalogued and documented in the ateliers located in Bologna and Grizzana. The extensive use of Zinc white has been demonstrated in relation to the artistic technique; its presence has been detected in each painting of the group (except one). Colours had never used pure, and Zinc white paint was employed in each of the colour due to the paint transparency. Zinc carbonates and oxalates has been detected on the painting surface
in many cases. Titanium white has been identified in the latest artworks, starting from the Fifties, where the Zinc white remain also present.
The general colour palette has been described according to the time development of the painter career. The obtained results confirmed a significative shift occurred between 1930 and 1940. This information could confirm the change in the materials employed by Morandi, that in those years moved from artisanal production introducing industrial paint tubes.
Per il report completo: https://zenodo.org/records/15342351