Quinto Martini (artist)
Encyclopedia
Quinto Martini was an Italian
artist
and writer
, born in Seano, Tuscany
. He was a self-taught artist, born in a farming family and raised among the hills behind Leonardo da Vinci
's land.
It was the contemporary renowned Italian artist Ardengo Soffici
who discovered Quinto Martini in 1926, when he went to visit Soffici's workshop in Poggio a Caiano, close to Seano, where the latter retired to paint the nature and traditional Tuscan farmers' world. Looking at the young Martini's first experiments, the maestro Soffici recognised the kind of genuine and intimate traits he was seeking. Quinto Martini was subsequently exposed to art and literature with Soffici as his patron, studying the French impressionists like Degas and Picasso, but also the Italian Giorgio Morandi
and Armando Spadini
, as well as the cubist and futurist artists.
In February 1927, still under the aegis of Soffici, Martini participated in his first exhibition, "il Selvaggio", together with reputed artists like Mino Maccari, Carlo Carrà
, Ottone Rosai
, Giorgio Morandi
, Achille Lega, Pio Semenghini. He later published in the review il Selvaggio etchings and drawings, entering the Florence
artists' and intellectuals' world.
Between 1928 and 1929 Quinto Martini went to Turin
for military service, where he moved in bohemian cafés and cultural circles enlivened by a Parisian avant-garde
atmosphere. There Martini met Felice Casorati
, Cesare Pavese
and "The Six Painters" group, who were typical interpreters of an anti-fascist and communist-oriented culture inspired by the French Cézanne and Manet
. In Turin the young artist encountered the intellectual Carlo Levi
who would be, together with Ardengo Soffici
, one of the fundamental interlocutors of his life.
Back in Florence after his military service in Turin, early in the 1930s the artist started working on the "Mendicanti" series which he would investigate again and again throughout his production. Martini's mendicant
s are painted in a realistic manner, where their poverty is described through poverty of tools, and the figures are symbolically lengthened and bent to the Earth.
. He used simple and "poor" terracotta, a material typical of his rural environment which was already common in the Seano area when the Etruscans settled and expressed their culture millenniums before. Terracotta was like the mud Martini moulded to make animal figures at the time he was a child, playing in the farm yard without knowing that those figures were early expressions of art, without even knowing what art was yet. One terracotta sculpture was "la ragazza seanese", which was unveiled at the XIX Biennale di Venezia in 1934. From that moment on, Quinto Martini gained the appreciation of the critics and the public.
From 1935 onward, Quinto Martini was present in all editions of the Quadriennale di Roma until the 1972-73 edition. At the 1939 edition, an entire salon was dedicated to his sculptures alone. In the same year, the artist published some of his etchings in the review "Frontespizio" which was gathering together the most relevant contemporary artists from Ottone Rosai
to Giorgio Morandi
, from Giacomo Manzù
to Fiorenzo Tomea
, and also important writers like Mario Luzi
and Carlo Bo
.
Quinto Martini participated in the XXth Biennale di Venezia edition, where he gained appreciation of the important critic Giuseppe Marchiori. The review "Domus" published an interview with him, and he was the protagonist of some exhibitions in Florence
, Milan
, and Rome
.
The "Mendicanti" series, some of which were displayed at the "Lyceum" in Florence in 1943, were considered to be against the regime warlike propaganda. Quinto Martini was jailed shortly after the exhibition, together with Carlo Levi
, in the same prison where his brother had been kept for almost fifteen years. Once released, the artist went into hiding in the Chianti
countryside to avoid being captured by the Nazis. In that period he wrote the novel I giorni sono lunghi (The Days Are Long) to render that experience memorable, which was published in 1957 with a preface from Levi himself. Intimate reflections expressed in verses, opened Martini's road to poetry.
With clear inspiration and sound form of expression, the artist animated the "Nuovo Umanesimo" art group with Ugo Capocchini, Emanuele Cavalli
, Giovanni Colacicchi, Oscar Gallo, and Onofrio Martinelli in 1947. Their "manifesto" announced their opposition to any concept of abstract art. Late in the 1940s Martini's sculptures won some first prizes at the national level, and early in the 1950s they started to be exposed abroad. Quinto Martini's paintings turned into a mature revision of Ardengo Soffici
's style, and experimentation of some of the XXth Century artistic currents including cubism
and futurism
.
He was a professor of sculpture at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence
from 1961 across the 1960s and 1970s. During the same years, the artist continued in his experimentation, developing the "Rain" theme and participating in exhibitions at the national and international level like the International Small Bronze Competition. Some of his small bronzes were exhibited at the "Contemporary Italian Sculptors" exhibition in 1970, which went on world tour (Florence
, Budapest
, Milan
, Buenos Aires
, Mexico City
, Rio de Janeiro
, Montevideo
, Tokyo
, Osaka
, Hakone, Strasbourg
, and locations in Holland.
Quinto Martini lectured in many conferences and symposium, and wrote a number of essays on the sculpture of Donatello
, Michelangelo
, Rodin
, and others. Personal and anthologizing exhibitions have been widely shown in the '70s and '80s.
Some of his most notable works were inspired by Dante's
Divine Comedy, and he himself has been described as "an important fixture in the cultural and artistic life of 20th-century Florence." The artist dedicated to Dante's masterpiece a complete set of lithographs which toured in Rome
, at the National Library of Florence, and also in Warsaw
and five different cities in the former U.S.S.R. Three books where published on this series of Martini.
Exhibitions on the artist are continuously organized, and books published.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, born in Seano, Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
. He was a self-taught artist, born in a farming family and raised among the hills behind Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
's land.
It was the contemporary renowned Italian artist Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici , was an Italian writer, painter and Fascist intellectual.-Life:Soffici was born in Rignano sull'Arno, near Florence...
who discovered Quinto Martini in 1926, when he went to visit Soffici's workshop in Poggio a Caiano, close to Seano, where the latter retired to paint the nature and traditional Tuscan farmers' world. Looking at the young Martini's first experiments, the maestro Soffici recognised the kind of genuine and intimate traits he was seeking. Quinto Martini was subsequently exposed to art and literature with Soffici as his patron, studying the French impressionists like Degas and Picasso, but also the Italian Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
and Armando Spadini
Armando Spadini
Armando Spadini was an Italian painter.-Biography:Spadini worked as a ceramist in Florence and attended the school of nude studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he met Ardengo Soffici, as from 1900. Introduced to the Symbolist magazine Leonardo in 1902, he took part in the 59th Esposizione...
, as well as the cubist and futurist artists.
In February 1927, still under the aegis of Soffici, Martini participated in his first exhibition, "il Selvaggio", together with reputed artists like Mino Maccari, Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà was an Italian painter, a leading figure of the Futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to his many paintings, he wrote a number of books concerning art. He taught for many years in the city of Milan.-Biography:Carrà was born in...
, Ottone Rosai
Ottone Rosai
Ottone Rosai was an Italian painter.-Biography:Rosai graduated from the Florence Academy of Fine Arts in 1912, a period in which he was closely associated with the Lacerba group of Florentine Futurists and especially Ardengo Soffici, with whom he held a joint exhibition at the Galleria Sprovieri,...
, Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
, Achille Lega, Pio Semenghini. He later published in the review il Selvaggio etchings and drawings, entering the Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
artists' and intellectuals' world.
Between 1928 and 1929 Quinto Martini went to Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
for military service, where he moved in bohemian cafés and cultural circles enlivened by a Parisian avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
atmosphere. There Martini met Felice Casorati
Felice Casorati
Felice Casorati was an Italian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. The paintings for which he is most noted include figure compositions, portraits and still lifes, which are often distinguished by unusual perspective effects.-Life and work:Casorati was born in Novara and showed an early interest in...
, Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator; he is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.- Early life and education :...
and "The Six Painters" group, who were typical interpreters of an anti-fascist and communist-oriented culture inspired by the French Cézanne and Manet
Manet
-MANET as an abbreviation:*MANET is a mobile ad hoc network, a self-configuring mobile wireless network.*MANET database or Molecular Ancestry Network, bioinformatics database-People with the surname Manet:*Édouard Manet, a 19th-century French painter....
. In Turin the young artist encountered the intellectual Carlo Levi
Carlo Levi
Dr. Carlo Levi was an Italian-Jewish painter, writer, activist, anti-fascist, and doctor.He is best known for his book Cristo si è fermato a Eboli , published in 1945, a memoir of his time spent in exile in Lucania, Italy, after being arrested in connection with his political activism...
who would be, together with Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici , was an Italian writer, painter and Fascist intellectual.-Life:Soffici was born in Rignano sull'Arno, near Florence...
, one of the fundamental interlocutors of his life.
Back in Florence after his military service in Turin, early in the 1930s the artist started working on the "Mendicanti" series which he would investigate again and again throughout his production. Martini's mendicant
Mendicant
The term mendicant refers to begging or relying on charitable donations, and is most widely used for religious followers or ascetics who rely exclusively on charity to survive....
s are painted in a realistic manner, where their poverty is described through poverty of tools, and the figures are symbolically lengthened and bent to the Earth.
Quinto Martini as sculptor and mature artist
Across the '30s and '40s, the artist's attention shifted progressively to sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
. He used simple and "poor" terracotta, a material typical of his rural environment which was already common in the Seano area when the Etruscans settled and expressed their culture millenniums before. Terracotta was like the mud Martini moulded to make animal figures at the time he was a child, playing in the farm yard without knowing that those figures were early expressions of art, without even knowing what art was yet. One terracotta sculpture was "la ragazza seanese", which was unveiled at the XIX Biennale di Venezia in 1934. From that moment on, Quinto Martini gained the appreciation of the critics and the public.
From 1935 onward, Quinto Martini was present in all editions of the Quadriennale di Roma until the 1972-73 edition. At the 1939 edition, an entire salon was dedicated to his sculptures alone. In the same year, the artist published some of his etchings in the review "Frontespizio" which was gathering together the most relevant contemporary artists from Ottone Rosai
Ottone Rosai
Ottone Rosai was an Italian painter.-Biography:Rosai graduated from the Florence Academy of Fine Arts in 1912, a period in which he was closely associated with the Lacerba group of Florentine Futurists and especially Ardengo Soffici, with whom he held a joint exhibition at the Galleria Sprovieri,...
to Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
, from Giacomo Manzù
Giacomo Manzù
Giacomo Manzù, pseudonym of Giacomo Manzoni , was an Italian sculptor, communist, and Roman Catholic.-Biography:...
to Fiorenzo Tomea
Fiorenzo Tomea
Fiorenzo Tomea was an Italian painter.-Biography:Tomea studied at the Cignaroli Academy in Verona, where he met Giacomo Manzù and Renato Birolli, in the period 1926–27. Having moved to Milan, he came into contact with Edoardo Persico, who invited him to exhibit his work at the Galleria del Milione...
, and also important writers like Mario Luzi
Mario Luzi
- Biography:Mario Luzi was born in Castello, near Sesto Fiorentino; his parents, Ciro Luzi and Margherita Papini hailed from Samprugnano and he spent his youth in Castello, where he started his primary school...
and Carlo Bo
Carlo Bo
Carlo Bo was a poet, literary critic, a professor and Life senator of Italy .Before World War II, in the year , he published an essay on the literary magazine Frontespizio, by the title "Letteratura come vita ", containing the theoretical-methodological fundamentals of hermetic poetry...
.
Quinto Martini participated in the XXth Biennale di Venezia edition, where he gained appreciation of the important critic Giuseppe Marchiori. The review "Domus" published an interview with him, and he was the protagonist of some exhibitions in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
The "Mendicanti" series, some of which were displayed at the "Lyceum" in Florence in 1943, were considered to be against the regime warlike propaganda. Quinto Martini was jailed shortly after the exhibition, together with Carlo Levi
Carlo Levi
Dr. Carlo Levi was an Italian-Jewish painter, writer, activist, anti-fascist, and doctor.He is best known for his book Cristo si è fermato a Eboli , published in 1945, a memoir of his time spent in exile in Lucania, Italy, after being arrested in connection with his political activism...
, in the same prison where his brother had been kept for almost fifteen years. Once released, the artist went into hiding in the Chianti
Chianti
Chianti is a red Italian wine produced in Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco ; however, the fiasco is only used by a few makers of the wine now; most Chianti is now bottled in more standard shaped wine bottles...
countryside to avoid being captured by the Nazis. In that period he wrote the novel I giorni sono lunghi (The Days Are Long) to render that experience memorable, which was published in 1957 with a preface from Levi himself. Intimate reflections expressed in verses, opened Martini's road to poetry.
With clear inspiration and sound form of expression, the artist animated the "Nuovo Umanesimo" art group with Ugo Capocchini, Emanuele Cavalli
Emanuele Cavalli
Emanuele Cavalli , was an Italian painter belonging to the modern movement of the Scuola romana . He was also a renowned photographer, who experimented with new techniques since the 1930s.-Biography:...
, Giovanni Colacicchi, Oscar Gallo, and Onofrio Martinelli in 1947. Their "manifesto" announced their opposition to any concept of abstract art. Late in the 1940s Martini's sculptures won some first prizes at the national level, and early in the 1950s they started to be exposed abroad. Quinto Martini's paintings turned into a mature revision of Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici , was an Italian writer, painter and Fascist intellectual.-Life:Soffici was born in Rignano sull'Arno, near Florence...
's style, and experimentation of some of the XXth Century artistic currents including cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
and futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
.
He was a professor of sculpture at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
from 1961 across the 1960s and 1970s. During the same years, the artist continued in his experimentation, developing the "Rain" theme and participating in exhibitions at the national and international level like the International Small Bronze Competition. Some of his small bronzes were exhibited at the "Contemporary Italian Sculptors" exhibition in 1970, which went on world tour (Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, Hakone, Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, and locations in Holland.
Quinto Martini lectured in many conferences and symposium, and wrote a number of essays on the sculpture of Donatello
Donatello
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...
, Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, Rodin
Rodin
- People :* Auguste Rodin , French sculptor, for whom is named:** The Musée Rodin in Paris, France** The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA** The Rodin Gallery in Seoul, South Korea** Rodin , a crater on the Moon...
, and others. Personal and anthologizing exhibitions have been widely shown in the '70s and '80s.
Some of his most notable works were inspired by Dante's
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
Divine Comedy, and he himself has been described as "an important fixture in the cultural and artistic life of 20th-century Florence." The artist dedicated to Dante's masterpiece a complete set of lithographs which toured in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, at the National Library of Florence, and also in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and five different cities in the former U.S.S.R. Three books where published on this series of Martini.
Exhibitions on the artist are continuously organized, and books published.
Places named for him
Parco museo Quinto Martini in Seano was dedicated in 1988, while Martini was still alive, and displays 36 of his bronzes in an open air setting.External links
- Parco museo Quinto Martini official site, in Italian