Gianfranco Passoni. Painter of sublimated tradition and modernity.

A surprise! A resounding surprise in Modena, where Gianfranco Passoni, the city’s legendary master, the great representative of the pictorial tradition of the ducal capital who now returns after one of his typical, long periods of meditation and work, is exhibiting at the Centro Muratori in Via Castel Maraldo. It certainly cannot be forgotten that he held the Chair of Figure in the “Adolfo Venturi” Art Institute with an admirable hand for so many years, making an outstanding contribution to the continuity of classical and naturalistic representation of the visible universe. This is a thoughtful statement, since in the term “classical” lies all the expertise of the masters of all time, but in the meaning of naturalism shines the extreme variety and vividness of every different presence: from the landscape to the thousand atmospheric temperaments, from the enigmatic “silent things” to the human subject treated in various bodily and especially emotional contexts.

We must tell ourselves that nowadays contemporary society tends toward an extensive valorization of the body and bodies: from entertainment (by all means) to sporting activities, from meeting places to aesthetic treatments, from health to fashion, and so on. But at the same time, the conats of certain so-called “contemporary art” abandon their relationship with nature and die out in a halo of gimmicks that have no language. That’s the big problem! We consider language (any language) as a structure endowed with complex physiognomy, historically composed, not intuitive but elaborated over a system of signs, or voices, corresponding to symbols. It is an essential tool for a civilization and represents it. Without language, human life is not possible, because communication, not even self-communication (learning, culture) is not possible.

We apologize for this clarification to return to Gianfranco Passoni, an artist of enchanting design, a penetrating observer, a reflective thinker, and a transfiler from total objectivity to the fermenting cosmos of lyrical vagueness or cogitation on human bitterness. Gifted with an always unexpected sensibility, he offers us in his impeccable paintings a series of situations that are like a maieutic accompaniment, from the poetry of mind-blowing and accurate landscapes to the great questions of the problems of being. A true anthology of the imaginative space that an authentic artist must traverse, obviously remaining himself in style and in the peculiar capacity for formal transfiguration.

Gianfranco Passoni’s art thus stands, historically, on the dividing line between the second and third millennium and delivers to our society a type of total document that stands high, above the watershed of time, and to which it will always be necessary to look.

Gianfranco Passoni, Sublime Landscape King of landscapes Master Passoni processes them with admirable skill, sublimating totally objective visions into transfigured, fully enchanting complexes.

Gianfranco Passoni, Humanity and Nature. Landscape In the vast expanses of the emotional setting, the rocky and ideally humanized panoramas strictly respect the slope of the planes to infinity. The lenticular definition of hatching and color has often recalled, with amazement, the extreme acuity of the ancient Flemish, especially in the vegetation.

Gianfranco Passoni, In the Lunar Mysteries. Again in the panoramic drafts Passoni proves himself a master of every effect of light, solar or cloudy or lunar, and pursues with incredible fulfillment every magnificence or enchantment of luministic modulations.

Gianfranco Passoni, The Enigma of Things. The “senseless vitality” of things has always attracted this “Master of Silence,” who has devoted much of his masterful work to the hidden poetics of simple objects, pictorially possessed to the point of extreme truth.

Gianfranco Passoni, Ut pictura poesis, with melody A painting that responds to itself, though without cryptic references, but that conquers the musical and all-inward solitude of the work of art.

Gianfranco Passoni, The Human Mirror At the summit of a career always aimed at the visual universe, the human condition could not fail to strike deep into that “translator” who is the figurative artist. Fundamental act then is this mirror of man and woman: a questioning and complacency that can also result in the perennial desire for a beautiful adventure.

Gianfranco Passoni, The Eternal Question. In life, which is obligatory to live, here are the questions: almost a universal anguish. Passoni does not disregard this answer to his supreme predecessors, from Michelangelo’s fatal worry to the sighs of recent symbolism. But all mankind is called to eternal light. And this is the liberating response of the aedo who encourages, who assures, who shows the sublime transfiguration of our destiny with that coming flare.

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