Figures and Landscapes on Display

FROM JANUARY 14 UNTIL MARCH 8, THE PAINTINGS OF CESARE BREVEGLIERI, ONE OF THE LEADING INTERPRETERS OF SIMPLE AND IMMEDIATE PAINTING STYLE, WILL BE SHOWN IN THE RESTAURANT OF BOCCONI UNIVERSITY

Cesare Breveglieri was one of the leading proponents of Utrillo and especially Doganiere Rousseau in the 1930s and 1940s. His painting was far removed from academic standards, simple and immediate like that of a child.

Being simple is not easy, but Breveglieri, a cultivated artist with a restless and tormented sensibility, was successful in doing so, giving us a calm and slightly fairytale-esque idea of reality. He had a “simplified complexity,” as Enrico Somarè wrote.

In his paintings and his papers, landscapes look like small nativity scenes; figures look at us silently, seemingly ready to tell us their secrets; still lifes appear to be under a spell, with giant crustaceans and Lilliputian people on the same realistic and unreal beach.

Breveglieri reached this imaginative vision after a long and anxious journey, as seen in the tension that runs through many of his drawings. It is also evident in this small homage/exhibit, the last event in the celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of his death. Loved by Carrà, Sinisgalli, Piovene and Testori, he is an artist that is yet to be rediscovered.

Even in Milan, the city where he was born and lived, and that he interpreted in his work as a garden full of space and dreams.

Cesare Breveglieri (born in Milan 1902-1948) came into contact with the Novecento Italiano in 1928, after night classes at the Accademia di Brera. With a scholarship (the “Pensionato Sarfatti,” created by Margherita) in 1930, he was able to live in Rome and Paris for a few months, where he learned about Utrillo’s and Doganiere Rousseau’s painting. After 1934, he established his more typical expression, marked by magical realism and Rousseauian suggestions. From 1932 to 1936, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale; and from 1935 to 1943 he exhibited at the Rome Quadriennale. In November 1938, he held his first personal exhibit at the Galleria del Milione. He died in 1948, after a long illness, at the age of 46.

The exhibition is organized by ISU Bocconi. Free admission from Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

 

by Susanna Della Vedova