View of the Grand Canal in Venice, Armando Santi (1925 – 2015)

Armando Santi (1925 – 2015)
Venice
Tempera on canvas; 87 x 77 cm – frame 95,5 x 105,5 cm
Signed lower left: A. Santi

“A pulsating, incisive, dynamic painting, sometimes as strong as a punch in the stomach, but still intense and communicative, capable of surprising and asking questions.”

The canvas in question is the work of Armando Santi, one of the most beloved protagonists of twentieth-century figurative painting. Originally from Tuscany, specifically from Volterra, a place whose accent he will always retain, after training at the Volterra School of Art and the Florence Academy, he moved to Biella, where he remained until his death. Here he taught for a long time at the city art high school. His art documents ever-evolving research and extremely vital writing. Intense, communicative and pulsating, his works are characterized by great incisiveness, the result of a decisive sign capable of translating rapid intuition into a series of vibrant and energetic images. His artistic path has undergone continuous evolutions: from the first academic drawings, to the Mondine, oil on canvas which won the competition of the Ente Risi of Vercelli in 1649, from the Futurist paintings with geometric spaces and moving figures, to the evocative nocturne of Madonna di Oropa, up to the large canvases with a social theme, with dark and dark tones with some red touches. Around '68, at the height of social protests, he created strong compositions, like malnourished children, with a raw drama, perhaps a memory of the painter's experience as a teenager in a Polish concentration camp. To then arrive at a canvas like the one presented here, with the most cheerful and bright palette, dedicated to the beauty of Venice, a widespread subject in the painter's production, we recall those dedicated to the carnival. The Don Quixote series is very well known.
In 2015 the city of Biella dedicated a large exhibition to the painter, to remember and celebrate his 70 years of activity.
The painting depicts a view of the Grand Canal. You can recognize the two bell towers and the two large domes of the church of Santa Maria della Salute, near the Punta della Dogana. The view is rendered with rapid and heavy brushstrokes of different shades of blue and grey, which convey a chiaroscuro atmosphere full of mystery.

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