Morandi knocks me out

I visited Bologna's modern art museum, known as MAMbo, today. I was interested in work that they are showing from their permanent collection, and I was happy to see some paintings by artists that I know about: Burri, Paladino, Carol Rama, and Boetti. But nothing connected with me emotionally until I wandered into the Morandi exhibit, which is being stored at MAMbo temporarily. I have never been terribly interested in Morandi - paintings of bottles in shades of gray, really?

But Morandi's still lifes have a strange power. The bottles often lean in ways that they should not, and there sometimes are unrealistic shadows behind them. It may be that the pictures do not photograph well. I was moved by them, and a bit unnerved. Morandi seems to have largely ignored the spectacular developments in the art of his lifetime and limited himself to something quiet and understated. 

There is an American artist, Albert York, whose work reminds me most of Morandi. I think York is also a wonderful artist, and he is not very well known. Here is a link to an article about York, in case you are interested: paintingperceptions.com/albert-york-r-i-p/

I took a few not-very-good photos of Morandi paintings (below).
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