Piazza S.Francesco 3 tel.+39.095/317654 free/ from monday to saturday  9-13 a.m; Sunday and  holidays from 8.30 a.m to 13.30 p.m

Emilio Greco 2

The Order of the Sense

“Emilio Greco is the best understood in terms of  virginal and spring-like forces, indomitable and compelling, rather than in terms of refined intellectualism, ultimately prophetic and revelatory. His is a human experience where emotion dominates, even though it has to be serene and contemplated for it to become a form of living experience. The interior flexibility of greco is vast and is always ready, going beyond volition and discipline: raptus, angst, fires, hates depressions, sensuality, melancholy, nostalgia, anxiety, tenderness..these are all manifested tumultuously, even though repressed or tempered in a visionary calm that does not succeed in being ironic”.
This is a fragment from a famous essay that the art critic Carlo Ragghianti dedicated to Emilio Greco in 1973. His words, drawn as if on an engraver’s plate, become even more significant if we ourselves consider the work of the Catanese artist personally.
The Museo Emilio Greco has been open for a few years now – the artist himself inagurated it just before his death. It is housed in Palazzo Gravina – Cruyllas, the same building as the Bellini museum, and has many examples of Greco’s work from throughout the wide span of the time in wich he worked, 1955- 1992. The museum’s personnel will provide you with a catalogue of the works displayed so as to aid in understanding the subjects and the techniques used.

...Dreams of Escape Far Away

Among the most moving works is the series of etchings entitled Commiati ( Leave- taking) where the tormented moment when a men and women leave each other is analyzed. There are many classical references in the individual titles – Nausicaa, Euriclea, Aretusa, Medea, Saffo, Ritorno di Ulisse, Metamorfosi, Ninfa e fauno- togher with the strength of the poetical inspiration that is given concrete expression in the continous references to Catullus. The artist was born in Catania in 1913 and, from an early age, he was enchanted by ancient sculpture: “ There, in the ex-Convent of Santo Placido” , he wrote in his memories, “ I went to primary school and there , opposite the school, I discovered the first exhibits of the great Greco-Roman civilization through the thick iron grills on the windows of the ground floor of  Palazzo Biscari, itself in front of the mirrow of water in the port”. But at the time it was almost impossible to be an artist in Catania: “ In Catania in those days”, Greco himself continues, “ to be born an artist was not always a blessing. For youngsters the only chances of showing works of art was in some rare union exhibition. Some visitors, winking, would whisper to us, ‘But how can you even want to put on shows?’ And yet, at the time,Catania was a cultured city. In the field of literature we had had a glorius period with Verga, De Roberto, Capuana, which then continuaed with Brancati, Tomasidi Lampedusa and Sciascia, but the figurative arts stagnated. But with the passing of time things have changed even in Catania. Down there now there are istituites of art and private galleries operating. The moving memories of my youyh are rooted there : in the Baroque city where the old convents crowd around the place that was the acropolis in the golden age of Magna Graecia. The sea, the perfume of the jasmine plants, the Arab sing-song of mebn selling things in the sun-drenched streets, the spicy aromas of the varied cuisine, the many heritages of differing civilizations...all this relieves intensely and insistently in my soul...”

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