Agostino Ferrari

We're nearing the end of our foray into Italian artists who were born in the first half of the 20th century and who incorporated some form of calligraphic gestures into their paintings. By far the best biography yet, on any of these guys (that's in English), makes Agostino sound very much like a scientist working towards a specific goal. If you thought that I might have been stretching things by describing the other artists' works as calligraphic, I think you'll have to totally agree that this man's work is completely, all about the act of writing (or calligraphy) without any props or apologies.


Caldarelli. it is a wonderful site for seeing how his work developed through the years. In the early 60's there's the slightest glimmer of the writing aspect, but then he goes into geometric and minimal and, well, you need to see for yourself. It would be another 20 years until he discovers the oeuvre that would take him into this next century. Go to the site, click on the 1st painting and to advance, click prosegui. To go backwards, click torna. The whole set takes you up through 1998. Clicking on any painting will take you back to the picture index, where you originated.

Go HERE and you can see 7 other wonderful images that help to give a fuller picture.

And then artantide.com, the site that started all this. The red image (2006) at top is from their site and you'll enjoy the 11 images that range from '64 to '93. Read his biography HERE.

Lacolomba.ch has 6 images from the late '90's and then 2 very special, strange, beautiful images (must be way older) that have just the smallest evidence, it seems, of the thoughts about writing that would later bloom and flourish.

If you'll click on the image to your left (again, from artantide) for a larger view, you'll see that the background is completely covered with a gesture that could be a cursive e, l or maybe it's and on going u. What ever it is, this painting is totally all about script and writing, as verb and noun.

Please treat yourself to visiting these sites. There seems to be a very clear focus on what his oeuvre was once he caught his stride.

Today graffiti artists are all the rage. Galleries are spotlighting their work and blogs are singing their praises. This is just wonderful to look back into recent Art History and see how things developed and who the artists were who set us on our way. We always take the art we have for granted. We tend to forget that there used to be tighter parameters.

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And he's still painting. What he discovered for himself and us is still quite viable and fresh.

A site with 37 images of his work is centrosteccata.

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