ABOUT

THE VILLAGE OF MEMORY

The theme of the ruins, present in painting since the seventeenth century, invites us to reflect on the inexorable passage of time and on the persistence of values handed down from the past. [...] In this sense we see them represented in the work of Arnaldo Marini, whose reflection on the sense of time is set in small rural realities or villages perched on the mountains. [...] [...] These places become in the artist's interpretation, an emblematic image of memory and the traces that survived the fragility of the human story.

"By setting his story in the" family "dimension of the village rather than in the chaotic and alienating scenario of the big city, Marini makes a very significant choice on a symbolic level" because "while the city reflects the contradictions of an era that has lost its own historical conscience to live in an eternal present, the village continues to be, instead, a vivid and authentic testimony of the past "

The artist captures and re-elaborates these signs with a language centered on the evocative power of light, [...] a substance that is now dense, now dust-like, that envelops the houses and nature around them, lightening colors, attenuating the profiles, immersing everything in an impenetrable silence. The brushstroke is full-bodied, rich, humoral; the chromaticism ranges from the soft and luminous hues of a clear palette to the vivid shades of nocturnal settings. The volumetric masses occupy the space with regular geometric shapes that are repeated in a continuous play of chiaroscuro

...] "It is a way to place the scene in a space - time suspension, as if that represented was a vision dreamed of or surfaced by memory. Moreover, there is an analogy between the dream activity and the "imaginative" capacity of memory, since to both belongs the power to revive, even if abstractly, what was irretrievably lost or only forgotten.

...] the Marinian villages perfectly embody the poetry of the ruins, whose purpose is to remind us not only of what we have been but also what we could be, recovering the lesson of the past "

A warning that resound even in paintings where the suggestions of the ruined village give way to a chilling pile of rubble. This is the case of the Opera dedicated to Aleppo, the city destroyed by the recent war in Syria.

[...] The horror of the destruction and struggle of man against man wanders among the miserable remains of this hopeless landscape. Our time - Marini seems to say - is no longer able to produce ruins, and therefore monuments to memory, but only ruins, disquieting symbols of a present without history and without a future.

Daniela Pronestì: <Ritratti d’artista – Arnaldo Marini> in “La Toscana Nuova” n.10, 2018 november

<Arnaldo Marini, a Florentine from 1952, presents in his paintings the theme of the village that can be interpreted in two ways: as a village of memory, a concept evoked by the titles of some of his works, or as an alienating global village, given the total absence, in his paintings, of human elements. In the style of this artist we can glimpse the influence of Rosai who, for the Florentines of the generation of Arnaldo Marini, represented a true artistic myth. This influence appears mitigated, however, by some stylistic references to Siro Midollini and Silvio Loffredo of the baptisteries.>

Luca Monti: “Presenze nell’arte contemporanea” – exhibition’s catalogue Florence 2018

Arnaldo Marini, born in Florence in 1952, represents the motif of the villages of memory, structured according to essential architectural lines that through color and wise use of light are charged with silences and memories.

Silvia L. Matini: from ”Un inedito dialogo” – Presenze nell’arte contemporanea: exhibition catalogue Florence 2018

Capturing a form, or even a reflection, or a vision, or an idea, preserving its essence and bring it back to the canvas, freed from the useless, and yet still recognizable and alive, though reduced to pure color.

Knowing how to give everything that elusive touch that distinguishes it and makes it worthy of perpetual memory is a privilege of a few happy individuals, endowed with a talent that is often difficult to perceive.

Arnaldo Marini is one of these few happy people. It is not necessary to explain what it produces. it explains itself. It's there. Just take it.

Mario Napoli 2012