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Giovanni Cavazzon |
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ERALDO DI VITA Giovanni Cavazzon’s Romantic Realism In the works by Giovanni Cavazzon colour and drawings have
an alluring power all of their own. The psychological and architectural ambiences
of modern society are represented by the artist with utmost precision. Cavazzon’s paintings bear witness to the diverse
inspirational phases of his life. From
“Intorno a Venus / Around Venus” where worship for the female body is
paralleled to that of the Goddess of Love with those cerulean, rosy and ivory
coloured nudes (which are also the titles of a few other works), where
drawings, proportions and colours become the most salient and distinctive
features of this Friulan Master. In the works by Cavazzon classical art representations can
often be found in modern installations. Images are placed in wood crates, as
if packed away, in which green or blue-coloured polystyrene is strewn to
create a seaside effect (“Venere al Bagno / Venus Bathing”), a meadow effect
(“Colazione sull’Erba / Breakfast on the lawn”), and the audacious works of
“Apollo e Dafne / Apollo and Daphne” and “Paride e Afrodite / Paris and
Aphroditis” where sculptures carved in wood stand out against the crated
painting. The drawings in graphite or coloured pencil lead us into
Leonardo’s universe of the human figure and Michelangelo’s creation of the
world. Even in his portraits Cavazzon becomes the “reflection of his
subject’s soul” through which the true essence of their spirits gleams. This is the difference between a portrait and pure and
simple photography, between our “inner” and “outer” mirror. The cycle of the “Baccanti / Bacchantes” takes shape with
the apotheosis of the “Baccante / Bacchante” on the bottom of a seventeenth
century barrel and with “Le Baccanti e l’uva / The Bacchantes and the
grapes”. Giovanni Cavazzon’s personal style comes out not only in
the shapes and structures of his paintings but also in the contents and
themes. Cavazzon has taken painting to the limits of reality
through the use of conventional motives and techniques embellishing them with
personal and innate facets that lure the observer inside the scene and
involve them emotionally. One has to penetrate deep into a subject to be able to
reconsider them and Cavazzon does this by grasping all of their fundamental
traits thus bringing out his romantic conception of art. It is not by pure chance that the artistic process of
Cavazzon presses on motives of classicism and romanticism. The reason behind
the subject matter in his paintings tells us it is impossible to transmit
beauty to an “object” without an “expressionist” participation on its behalf. Cavazzon is an artist of refined purity in his shapes, with
a natural ability in representing the sacred and the profane. His cultural components burrow deep into Renaissance art.
His attitude, in terms of convictions and poetics, is that of a studio artist
who goes to his “workshop” every day (as in days gone by) and punctually,
like a goldsmith, does his work. Not only does Cavazzon paint what he truly sees out in the
world but he also captures the spirit, a smile, a subtle puff of air, the
inner light or the darkness. He can grasp the essence of the subject. There is not doubt about the innovative force of Cavazzon’s
pictorial act. All his cultural and spiritual education is an appeal to
Mittel-European positivism where the supreme aim of his paintings is not only
that of representing objects but of expressing ideas, and translating them
into a personal and emotive language. In his drawings, where the artist’s ability cannot avoid
criticism, Cavazzon is among the few in Italy with a natural ability to
sketch, with an unyielding sense of perception, whose esthetic solutions in
the expression of lines, in the metric sense of light and colour, is full of
classical romanticism. Within him lies the pure strength of shapes set in a
space of contained solemnity. Cavazzon seeks and finds depth through the
prospective result of proportions, through the method of rigid plasticity
which may at first appear neoclassical, but which in actuality is a rigorous
attitude, between the expert ploy of new and old rhythms, harmony in curves
and colours that bring out the rotundities and ovals of the faces and
portraits, jealously sheltering the models from time and history. The nudes by Cavazzon evoke emotions without a sense of
breathlessness. The nudes are chaste, never vulgar, sensual and never sexual
or erotic, but often heroic. They are the purification of sentiments, the
evocation of life and nature. They may be read as a summons not to separate
the work of art from its creator who seems to permeate with the history of
thirteenth century Tuscan paintings right through to seventeenth century
Venice, from the impressionists to Italian expressionism and realism. The authentic artist is thus born, born from the most
simple things. Ideas will follow from the confrontation of these things. An
act of love with the world bears works of art. As is the need to live longer
by taking an image and thus freezing a portion of time and making it last
longer than the life of the artist himself. Cavazzon is a profound connoisseur of the nude in the history
of art. From Botticelli to the Daughters
of Venus by Rodin, from Coubert to the pompous nudes by Renoir, from the
delicate nudes by Degas to the sensual nudes by Modigliani. He has studied
them all in depth before dwelling on the female human body his way with his
own personal art. He sees the body as the synthesis between beauty and
harmony, a body “without defects”, paying attention to those classical
measures, to those Greek canons which expressionism or the trans-avant-gardes
have abandoned to give room to a representation of the body which is not
fearful of showing what it really looks like, suggesting sensuality, but
which also unveils anxiety and anguish. A quest for an esthetic ideal and the
acceptation of one’s real body, a continual tension which not even art can
resolve. Expression of changing values and vanishing certainties,
the nude body is the only fact that remains unchanged in our existence. It is
the means through which the world relates and a source of obsession for many
artists. But not so for Giovanni Cavazzon, who has made the artistic
nude his personal way of doing art, staging the nude to bring an act to life,
bodies that provoke and which at times are exhibited for the sole purpose of
arousing desire in order to touch off anxieties that leave something behind. All these images which Cavazzon has produced and nurtured
bear witness to his extraordinary capacity of investigation well beyond the
human body and soul, free from moral judgements or conformism, but extremely
and psychologically penetrating. All one needs to do is observe the faces and the attitudes
of a few of his works such as “Paride and Aphroditis” and “Apollo and Daphne”
to find acceptance in the first and refusal in the latter (hands which
attract and reject). It is here that the true artist can be found. Like a
theatre director who does not miss the importance of a gesture or facial
expression which are basic communication techniques. And lastly, the origin of Giovanni Cavazzon’s painting lies
in naturalism which took root across all of northern Italy. This style
started with Caravaggio and lasted straight through to Giacomo Ceruti. We have before us an artist who is headed towards the
fourth millennium and with him a representation worthy of our grandest artistic
traditions. |
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