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03/05/2007: "A Painting Lesson"
We were in open country, on a wintry day, white and light blue with the snow and the sun. Otello.had placed his easel on the highest point of the hill and was looking at the view below him attentively and with great concentration. I was holding his box of paints and looking at the landscape, too, glancing up at his eyes to try to understand what he wanted to see. He was clearly performing some kind of translation - transforming, in his mind, the trees and the snow, the river and the hills into exciting colours, shapes and rhythms.
He took the box of paints from my hands and, while I was taking out his palette, he spoke.
"It looks like a good view. Perhaps we can make a good picture. Painting a landscape in the snow isn't an easy thing to do. It all looks white, but it's really full of colour."
When he started spreading the colour, choosing the tubes with his large hands, he said,
"First we put the white, then the natural sienna ochre yellow, then the burnt ochre, the umber, the 'Pozzuoli' red... These are the colours, Alberto, that the ancient masters used. They are nearly all natural clays, and you can paint anything with them. And here is the green earth and, for the light blues, we'll use cobalt and ultramarine and, finally, vine black."
The palette was ready, smelling of colours. It looked as if all the natural landscape around us was reflected in it. Otello held it firmly in his left hand. At the same time, he started scratching the canvas with a piece of charcoal. "You have to capture the basic lines of the landscape - to know how to recognise the movement of these hills without getting distracted by the details that weaken its structure. It's always better to have a harmonious whole, to draw bold and generous lines, rather than being trite. You mustn't dawdle over painting". Then he started to paint. His handsome face was serene. The thoughts that he had gathered in his mind during his long and careful observation seemed to melt into colours that spread quickly over the canvas. It was like watching a magical cloth being woven. Every brushstroke intersected the others, giving life to that pattern, from which the painting mysteriously emerged. His brushstrokes became less frequent, his touches lighter and accompanied by a
movement of the painter's head, reclining on one shoulder or on the other, getting closer and then stepping back from the canvas, as if he had to see whether there were points that needed to be more clearly defined ... "I'll leave it as it is. If something needs to be added, I'll do it when I get home. It is freshly painted, and its a first impression. I must be careful not to deaden the tones of the colours. I think it shows something a little poetical". He took his eyes off the painting and looked at me, pleased to see my admiring expression.
"Do you like it, Alberto?" "It's wonderful" I replied.
He smiled and, while he closed the box of paints lying on the snow, he said, affectionately,
"One day you will make better paintings".
On that wintry afternoon I took the first and fundamental painting lesson of my life. I was fourteen years old and my uncle Otello Magnani was thirty-five.
Alberto Sughi
For more info on Alberto Sughi see. www.albertosughi.com
