Places of memory
"stop here! I too aim at this nature a little.
of the morning sea and the limpid sky
dazzling blues and yellow shore: everything
is beautified in the great effused light "
Every time I stop to look at a painting by franco beraldo, I hear these verses echo in my memory: it is like a refuge for the mind, a place where one can find peace and silence and at the same time enjoy the inner calm that this world has made us lose.
Ever since my first encounter with his painting, I have felt a sense of familiarity, a mental contact, a common way of feeling in the reality that surrounds us.
And I was not mistaken when, behind what appears to be motionless, permeated only with spirituality, suspended outside of time, I read a very strong desire to rebel against fashions, against culture, even pictorial culture, imposed by the majority. his paintings are truly the mirror of his soul, of his character, which has led him to make an absolutely autonomous choice that eschews fashions and schemes.
If Italian painting has always been forced into a path designed by others, imposed by political correctness, Franco Beraldo has never sold his soul; he has remained faithful to it, as to his nature, to his ideas, willing to face the price that must be paid by those who leave the group and decide to walk alone along their own path.
It is this strength of his, this ability to remain consistent with himself, that made me feel immediately close to him.
for a long time, our 20th century artists were discriminated against by the prevailing culture. for a long time, American art in its various aspects stole the scene, imposing itself as a touchstone for much so-called left-wing italian and european painting. beraldo remained a painter "in the italian way", not against but on his own. a painter of still lifes and landscapes, a voice close to my world who, after a long exile together with many other 20th century artists, was finally welcomed by the cultural world, thanks also to the great exhibition of realism at the centre pompidou in 1980. and as always happens when doors are opened to diversity, we have all been enriched a little more.
his paintings force us to look beyond what we see. they open up an invisible doorway for us to search within ourselves for the essence of things. it is almost a luxury to take a break with him, to remove ourselves from this neurotic life and immerse ourselves in a sunny, luminous world enveloped in the charm of magical shapes and colours. it is true that many have always tried to capture the soul of things. perhaps franco beraldo has really succeeded.
".... stop here. deluded in aiming
that I really saw the moment that I stopped,
and not my fantasies, even here.
the memories, the forms of pleasure. "
(Constantine Kavafis Morning Sea)
The places of memory museum villa nazionale pisani stra (venice 1997)