Giorgio Morandi, 1890–1964, co-organized by the Museo d’Arte Moderna of Bologna and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was the first comprehensive survey of Morandi’s work in the United States. The exhibition gathered 110 paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings by the reserved, often elusive, and sometimes underappreciated Italian painter of still life and landscape. The curators, Maria Cristina Bandera, Director of the Fondazione Roberto Longhi in Florence, and Renato Miracco, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, brought together a remarkable selection of works, drawn from both Italian and U.S. museums as well as private collections. There were the inevitable crowd-pleasers: the intimate still lifes that depict bottles, vases, and tins on barely delineated surfaces. These objects are endlessly rearranged in series that vary only slightly through the years yet invariably delight viewers with their quiet simplicity and familiar shapes. The exhibition also offered surprises, among them the rediscovered Self-Portrait (1919, cat. no. 5), which dominated the exhibition entrance. The painting had long been thought lost or destroyed, but a recent conservation effort revealed the stark image underneath an old lining on the verso of Cactus (ca. 1918–19, cat. no. 10), a study of a solitary potted plant. The placement of this rediscovered image of self-presentation at the show’s entry was particularly fitting insofar as the Met exhibition afforded an opportunity to look anew at Morandi.

Accounts have long described Morandi as a provincial painter, leading a quiet and isolated life, uninvolved in politics and unaffiliated with any artistic movement—a reticent man so intently focused on his still-life compositions of household objects that he earned the moniker “the painter of bottles.” It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that established Morandi scholarship avoids complexities and ambiguities in both his life and work that could result in a much richer narrative. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue take some steps toward rectifying the account. This was most apparent in the exhibition’s proffered version of Morandi as an artist responsive to contemporary avant-garde movements, seen in his lesser-known paintings that reveal Futurist, Cubist, pittura metafisica, and Strapaese influences. Morandi’s mature works are more difficult to characterize; he embraced neither abstraction nor the propagandistic realism of the Novecento movement. Perhaps Morandi’s relative obscurity outside of Italy comes from his distinct place outside of any twentieth-century “ism.”

Morandi’s complexity is revealed more thoroughly in the catalogue. Maria Mimita Lamberti’s essay, in particular, makes an effort to present a more complete account of Morandi’s character, above all the surprising urbanity of this isolated provincial and his engagement in cultural, social, and even political circles. Despite a “monotonous exterior plainness” (252), Morandi was a generous etching professor and a successful painter who exhibited internationally and struck up friendships with renowned art historians. His paintings served to distinguish the 1960s Italian intelligentsia by decorating the sophisticated sets of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte. More importantly, Lamberti confronts Morandi’s interactions during the Fascist ventennio. Reflection on this period in Morandi’s life has provoked anxiety, especially considering his friendships with Fascist intellectuals Mino Maccari and Leo Longanesi, as well as the inclusion of Morandi’s prints within their journals Il Selvaggio and L’Italiano. While evidence can be claimed for both his affiliation with (perhaps a matter of convenience) and resistance to the totalitarian regime, Lamberti points out that after World War II Morandi underscored his political neutrality (if not opposition) by publicly asserting his isolationist character. This effort set a strong foundation for the mythical Morandi: solitary and apolitical. In a 1960 interview Morandi claimed: “When most Italian artists of my own generation were afraid to be too ‘modern,’ too ‘international’ in their style, not ‘national’ or ‘imperial’ enough, I was still left in peace, perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. My privacy was thus my protection and, in the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained a provincial professor of etching, at the Fine Art Academy in Bologna” (250).¹

Given the exhibition’s function of introducing Morandi to a broad U.S. public, its layout in the circular galleries of the Met’s Lehman wing was a regrettable muddle. Upon entering, viewers were forced to make a cumbersome and confusing counterclockwise turn in order to find the gallery space with Morandi’s earliest paintings. While subsequent rooms kept to a general gathering of works by particular decades, a stronger emphasis seemed to be placed on the viewers’ ability to compare and contrast small groups of paintings. This led to awkward spacing and empty walls. Further decisions to cluster certain works thematically (landscapes and floral still lifes) and to segregate Morandi’s prints at the end of the show were neither distinctly explained nor particularly helpful. The lack of an overarching organizational principle resulted in a rather underwhelming presentation.

If viewers chose to begin their visit with Morandi’s earliest works (1913–1917), they were treated to two landscapes that reveal the artist’s deep admiration of Paul Cézanne, from whom he learned to regard perception as an experience shaped not by perspective or logic but solely by sensations culled from nature. Several dynamic still lifes full of fragmented planes evidence Morandi’s awareness of Cubist developments and reflect his affiliation (however brief) with the Futurists. The soft color palette, so reminiscent of Quattrocento frescoes, and the volumetric rendering of form of other early paintings remind us of Morandi’s trips to Florentine churches to study Giotto, Masaccio, and Paolo Uccello. Flavio Fergoni’s catalogue essay presents a thorough review of these myriad visual sources, while Neville Rowley’s contribution unravels connections to Piero della Francesca who, rather curiously, was not mentioned by Morandi as a central influence until the 1950s. The exhibition’s gathering of early works is especially significant due to the fact that Morandi destroyed many canvases from his youth.

The exhibition progressed to a second space, which displayed Morandi’s Metaphysical paintings from the period between 1916 and 1920. The pittura Metafisica movement is typically associated with Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. Although Morandi’s own engagement was fleeting, the exhibition’s examples of his Metaphysical painting are tours-de-force replete with enigmatic arrangements of glass boxes, floating balls, milliner’s mannequins, clock cases, and the ever-present bottles. These works have an air of monumentality; they are relatively large in scale (some of the largest paintings measure 60 by 58 cm) with smooth surfaces and a sharp bright light that casts improbable shadows across tabletops and walls.

While the Metaphysical paintings are noteworthy for their distinct style, they also mark an approach to representation that persisted throughout Morandi’s career. His still-life containers are treated with a formal rigor accompanied by an unwavering dedication to re-presenting unremarkable things in their beautiful ordinariness. Morandi’s pantheon of objects is perpetually recycled from painting to painting; but observing the works in sequences, as the exhibition allowed viewers to do, revealed an air of irresolution. Each subtle change in composition, each different instance of paint handling or adjustment of perspective introduces a note of uncertainty, a commentary on the tenuousness of form.

Moving through the rooms dedicated to sequences of still lifes, viewers had the opportunity to contemplate the variety of Morandi’s stylistic approaches and thematic groupings. The surfaces of paintings from the late 1920s and early 1930s are thickly slathered. Compositions of ochre seashells painted during World War II have an unbalanced and edgy air. Four paintings from the mid 1930s offer variations on a theme of a dozen or so jumbled kitchen objects in shades of blue and beige. In the 1940s, groupings of white vases create a ghostly atmosphere. By the mid-point of Morandi’s career, the iconic style that made him famous comes into view. In the 1950s, the paintings’ warm and muted tones capture the atmosphere and colors of Morandi’s Bologna, especially as the objects’ architectonic structures suggest the profile of that city’s porticos and terracotta-roofed skyline. Other groups maintain a fragile stillness or float in unresolved spaces without sign of perspectival depth.

One fascinating example is Natura Morta (Still Life) (1956, cat. no. 90), which features long-necked bottles and tall rectangular forms resting on a “surface” that is distinguished from the background plane by a muddy horizontal line. Above that line is an indefinite field of pale color treated with the same anxious brushwork as the objects ostensibly in front of it. Upon closer viewing, the painting’s simple certainties begin to unravel. Objects that first appeared to be rectangular boxes melt into unformed dark tracts that serve only to highlight the bottles’ sinuous necks. The necks themselves seem to shift and slip at awkward angles. Morandi’s subtle adjustments become monumental choices in the exploration and questioning of space and perception. Given these subtleties, it is all the more unfortunate that the exhibition was assigned such an awkward space within the museum. Morandi’s works deserve open and naturally lit galleries.

Separated from Morandi’s better-known still lifes, a dozen landscapes were hung as a thematic group. While Morandi painted landscapes more frequently before the 1940s, they continued to hold a prominent place in his oeuvre and were rightly featured in the exhibition. It is interesting to note, however, that these works have not received sustained scholarly attention, a lacuna the catalogue regrettably does not fill. Moreover, the exhibition held to the well-established modernist practice of conceiving landscape from a formalist perspective, with nature serving not as a thing in itself but primarily as a vehicle for experimentation with color and brushstroke. Wall texts encouraged viewers to observe the landscapes for their “pure color contrast” and “modulations of tonalities.” Certainly there is more to see. Morandi chose to depict the places he knew: the Emilia-Romagna countryside and scenes from his bedroom window in Bologna. Sadly, no examples of his rendering of scenes from that window frame on via Fondazza were included in the exhibition. Regardless, Morandi’s persistent gaze upon the same scenes throughout the years recalls Cézanne’s regular returns to L’Estaque, Bibémus, and Mont Sainte-Victoire. Two knockout landscapes (both titled Paesaggio [Landscape] 1927 and 1928; cat. nos. 28 and 29) feature the same farmhouse on a hill. The view is from below, where trees interrupt the path to the house; everything is bathed in golden and olive hues. While there is no question that Morandi has replicated elements of Cézanne’s The House with the Cracked Walls (ca. 1892–1894), the scene is thoroughly recognizable as the Italian countryside. Morandi’s landscapes reflect a particular mood (as well as time) and way of thinking about life in Italy.

The same landscapes are also the subject matter of many of his etchings. A selection of these prints was on display in the last rooms of the exhibition. Morandi was adept at capturing through the etching process a spectrum of tone, subtleness of texture, and sensitivity to light. From the rough, hesitant lines of the earliest prints to the intricate webs of cross-hatching in more mature examples, these prints deserve rapt attention. These etchings of still lifes and landscapes show mastery of technique; some images are bathed in dark shadow and others shimmer with silver tones. There are tightly grouped compositions that challenge viewers to decipher the subject: are those bottles or profiles of buildings? Resolution of these questions was further complicated at the Met by the prints’ placement within deep glass cases positioned in dark corners, which severely hindered an ability to appreciate the subtleties of the carefully chosen papers on which the works were printed. The catalogue includes large-scale reproductions of only two etchings, but Janet Abramowicz, Morandi’s student and studio assistant at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, has written a fine essay on the subject.

The exhibition concluded in rooms dedicated to the superb paintings and watercolors from the last years of Morandi’s life. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the still lifes and landscapes contain spaces that confound the eye and strain at the limits of representation. Elusive forms dissolve into their surroundings. At this point the objects have become less important for their referential specificity than for the opportunity they afford for the exploration of planes, line, and paint handling. Morandi is able to endow negative space with real power and substance. In several small watercolors from 1963, forms are reduced to a watery pass of the brush. Morandi’s claim that “there is nothing more abstract than reality” allows the ambiguity of these images to slowly and tentatively congeal. Natura Morta [Still Life] (1964, cat. no. 125), the last painting Morandi made before his death in 1964 , includes a jug whose left edge melts into the plane of the back wall, while a shadow, thrown by a tall rectangular box, struggles to mimic any particular shape or fix itself to any one point. It is a testament to Morandi’s incessant drive to offer unusual views of the usual that these late paintings feel fresh and relevant to contemporary viewers.