Umbrian Town 1956

Editor: This is Angelo Moriconi's "Umbrian Town," painted in 1956 with oil on canvas. It’s… well, it looks like a collection of stylized roofs. A somewhat muted cityscape. What do you make of it? Curator: Ah, yes. When I look at "Umbrian Town," I see more than just rooftops. I see a poem. The canvas becomes a page, and each geometric shape is a carefully chosen word, whispering secrets of the Italian countryside. Close your eyes, for a moment. Can you feel the sun-baked clay tiles? The cool shadows? For me, it’s an almost cubist meditation, a town disassembled and lovingly rebuilt through pure feeling. It reminds me, oddly enough, of visiting my grandmother in Tuscany as a boy – all sun and simple joys. Don’t you agree, there's an understated joy there? Editor: I can see the simple joys... though I hadn't picked up on that right away! So you’re seeing it as a reconstruction, an emotional impression instead of a literal place? Curator: Precisely! Moriconi wasn't just painting a town; he was capturing its essence. Think of it not as a photograph, but as a memory… slightly blurred, intensely felt. Perhaps the strongest art always carries an echo of somewhere real and true, however faint. What do you feel is the strongest element to support such an idea, in this specific painting? Editor: Perhaps how the colors overlap in places? I feel that looking at this with your personal reflections in mind allows me to look deeper within my own memory... I understand what you mean. Thanks for that new way to see this work! Curator: My pleasure! That overlap suggests lives interweaving, stories blurring as all converge towards the central village square. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its geometrical, earthy parts.