- DINO BUZZATI ARTWORKS

- DINO BUZZATI ARTIST

Dino Buzzati it was one writer, journalist, painter, playwright, librettist, set designer, costume designer It is Italian poet.

Dino Buzzati was born in the family villa of San Pellegrino di Belluno on 16 October 1906. He attended classical high school Giuseppe Parini of Milan and then subscribe to Law to comply with the will of the family and graduate in 1928.

Known to most as the writer of theThe Desert of Tartars', Dino Buzzati was not only a journalist and writer, but above all, as he himself declared, a painter. If some event of his artistic life had gone differently, perhaps today we will remember him for his paintings, drawings, illustrations or hybrid texts that combine painting and literature. It is the case of Comic poem, where the artist revisits the theme of myth of Orpheus and Eurydice from a modern point of view. This work was considered the first example of graphic novel and is made up of 208 illustrated tables. On the same wavelength is also the last book published by Buzzati in 1971, The miracles of Val Morel, a collection of paintings that contain very short captions and which represent imaginary ex votos that see Santa Rita as the protagonist in the literary fiction.

With reference to his predilection for painting as an artistic expression, Dino Buzzati declared in an interview that he was the "victim" of a misunderstanding, that is, that he was a painter who also worked as a writer and journalist as a hobby, but for too long a time. At the same time, however, he declared that writing or painting for him is the same thing, because in both cases his goal was to tell the public stories.

As a painter, Dino Buzzati is strongly inspired by surrealism. At the same time, he does not renounce modernist suggestions such as, for example, those pop O neo-expressionists. From these starting points, the artist creates his personal poetics which contains within it a strong nostalgia for romanticism. And it is precisely from this fabulous approach of his that the narrative sub-plot is probably generated. This aspect is evident in the transfiguration that Buzzati makes of everyday life into a strongly different dimension.
A striking example of this is the artist's best-known work, namely Cathedral square which dates back to 1952. In this painting, Buzzati portrays the famous Lombard cathedral as if it were a limestone structure, completely immersed in nature and surrounded by a rocky landscape that wants to imitate the original architectural layout of the square.

The same type of atmosphere, that is gloomy that does not fall into gloom and anguished but not desperate, is part of another famous work of his, Souls in pain. In this painting we find a group of spirits haunting an entire city at night. The ghosts, similar in size to those of buildings, are the only inhabitants of that urban representation that emanates anguish. This vivid tension that is generated between the city and nature is part of all his poetics, but also of his life. This aspect was influenced by the places that saw it born and grow, San Pellegrino of Belluno It is Milan, places that have marked its existence.

The themes he tackles in his pictorial career are therefore intertwined with the literary ones, forming a world where real and fantastic dimensions come together to create dimensions characterized by mystery, destiny, expectation and a melancholy vision of love. Those who appreciated Buzzati's pictorial work affirmed how he wrote while painting and while painting he wrote. Even in literary works, in fact, the word made one think of an image, while the latter has always been part of the word. Both the already mentioned Poem in comics and The Miracles of Valmorel are examples of his stylistic imprint.
All these characteristics are part of the first Buzzati exhibition, painted stories of 1958 and that of 1966 to Gian Ferrari Gallery, both in Milan.

On the other hand, the Paris exhibition at the La Pochade Gallery. The consecration of Buzzati painter unfortunately took place after his death in 1972 with the retrospective at Royal Palace of Milan from 1991.