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The absolute silence permeating Merendi's scenes, the almost programmatic
absence of human figures and, in any case, the absence of humans
engaged in any particularly significant activities (only beings who
appear as if taken from official photographs, and therefore all the
more anonymous), the renunciation of expressive and colorist tumult,
of easy flaunting of virtuosity (which he could do better than many),
of banal fashionable contamination or eccentric transgression, of
references to a cultural context with which to associate, to aid
an observer in search for consoling applause or approval, make him
a master, and not a petit maitre, in this difficult attempt to conciliate
and expressive generosity.
Controlled with an elaborate finishing, in search of a stylistic
rendition that is both definitive and characterized by such a fluidity
as to seem immediate, and which nevertheless is the result of continuous
distillation and re-elaboration, Merendi's paintings, renouncing
explicit descriptions of gestures and subjects, with a recognizable
iconographic significance convey the artist's purport through the
atmosphere of scenes where cancelled or sudden noises unfold in
a timeless serenity, and where a glacial detachment as well as
a certain dose of melancholy contribute to the creation of a modern
classicism of feeling and vision. |
