Luigi Zucceri’s moody landscapes, now on display at Karma Gallery, exude an unsettling allure. In his impressionistic rural scenes, farmers carry straw, fishermen slowly walk toward streams, and ramblers carry walking sticks along rough paths. Ordinarily, these figures might have symbolized idyllic tranquility, but Zuccheri, who was born in the Friuli region of Italy in 1904, introduced a destructive element – a menagerie of oversized creatures, plants, fruits and vegetables that made the They pale in comparison to the humans they share the canvas with.
While the presence of grasshoppers, snakes, pears and snails may suggest surrealist themes, a more certain influence on Zucceri would be vote Or the devotional paintings by local Italian artists he saw while growing up or studying painting in Venice. These folk paintings often depict the Virgin Mary interceding in the lives of ordinary people; the image is a commemorative token, commissioned by someone whose prayer was answered. These paintings, done in tempera, may be crude and lack perspective, but they are powerful symbols of emotion and faith.
Zucceri trained in oils, but in the 1940s he turned to tempera; all the works in the exhibition are tempera woodblocks, most created between 1950 and 1955. This technique requires mixing pigment with egg yolks and water and has been used for centuries to paint the walls of tombs and churches. Almost like one of the solitary figures in his paintings, he collects stones from the riverbank to grind paint. He shared his tempera painting technique with his friend Giorgio de Chirico, who in turn seems to have adopted the metaphysician’s tendency to imbue everyday life with a disturbing sense of scale and Perspective changes.
On a canvas (none of the works in the exhibition are titled), a lone traveler, with a vast, Bruegelian landscape spread out in front of him, steps towards a distant town, unaware of the There was a huge turtle behind me, and I didn’t realize there was a huge bird above me. Although it recalls images of prayers that mark miraculous events, the scene suggests an unbalanced world, a slightly sinister realm where the occult may be unwelcome and may actually be threatening.
This brooding effect is amplified by Zuccelli’s dark palette, rendered in thick brushstrokes that paint the land a muddy ocher and the turbulent sky in gunmetal grays and blues. Under a gloomy sky, a figure may be fighting the wind, holding a broom in hand while giant grasshoppers flutter at their feet. Primroses the size of houses were in bloom while people went about their business with aplomb. The disproportionate relationship between humans, animals and landscape does not seem to cause any panic in his work. In Zucceri’s rustic territory, fantasy is tamed; weirdness is the limit of reality, so a giant crab is nothing more than a sumptuous feast about to be eaten.
Luigi Zuccheri The exhibition runs through April 27 at Karma (188 East 2nd Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan).
