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| Paintings from 1953 to 1964:
the experimental years |
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Neon, 1954 |
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Coffee-house in Rapallo, 1954 |
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The news dealer, 1954 |
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Jazz, 1956 |
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Braquiana, 1958 |
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Lina’s birthday, 1957 |
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His return to Venice, in 1953, was not
a break, but almost: it was a change of register. The two main reasons
were probably: his re-immersion into the Venetian art scene, after
his three year exile in Vittorio Veneto, with greater commitment
and confidence than in the past; and his meeting and
ever closer friendship with the critic Gigi Scarpa, an open-minded
man, and a great "aficionado" of Picasso and abstract art.
With his
early works Ernani participated in the current events which surrounded
him, in the news, film and advertising. His works were paralleled
by his emerging passion for the latest music, as well as his more
secret and more intense love of Jazz and Bach, Mozart and Debussy,
which were his main sources of inspiration. At the same time his
contact with the most significant contemporary painters, from Kokoschka
to Picasso and Braque, from Cézanne to Mondrian, did not lead to
an easy imitation of fashion, but instead resulted in the originality
of his absorption of ideas moving on.
The dualism
between the superficiality, still fascinating nevertheless, of the
expression of certain moments in public life during the economic
boom, suggested to the artist a theme which made him search for emancipation
from a certain “academy of the twentieth century ” in the development
of a freer and more aggressive pictorial language. |
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| The bar, 1953 |
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Resurrection, 1958 |
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Ten years of close contact with the
culture of imagery of that time were resolved in a more careful
rather than enthusiastic adoption of leading methods, styles and
language, but decisive personal factors are also apparent.
These
derived from a background of literary, musical and religious exploration
and discovery. These elements were confirmed in his paintings by
certain signs of that tendency which contrasts with the painting
process in itself, which still remains of great importance, the
element of communication.
Fantasy touches every image so that things
are no longer weighed down, rather they are positioned according
to another law of gravity, not the usual one, a law which does
not take into account the specific weight of the bodies and makes
objects such as flowers, oranges, vases and even bread rolls on
the table fly into the air. Figures have no weight either, often
they are presented as apparitions, images frozen for a second in
front of our eyes, before disappearing as if in a dream.
[1965-1980…] |
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The Loaves and Fishes, 1959 |
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Black-and-white still-life,
1962 |
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Breakfast in the garden, 1963 |
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Indolence, 1963-
64 |
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Japanese composition
1964 |
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