A long history, a long path lies behind the painting and drawing of Aldo Cerdonio (born in Istria in 1922); this is a path of culture and of an uncommon artistic feeling, which over time and all the more today is confirmed by the interest shown for this artist by official criticism.
The strongest evidence is provided by the renowned Ada Zumino, eminent manager of an art gallery and talent-scout, who as early as 1995 displayed at her gallery a number of paintings and drawings produced between 1954 and 1995, and whom in the catalogue foreword, which also contained an essay by myself entitled “The Heroicness of the Image”, wrote: “I first met Aldo Cerdonio in 1963, when Carlo Cardazzo dedicated to him an exhibition at the Cavallino gallery in Venice. Now, after as many as thirty-two years, I take pleasure in presenting at my own gallery, by making an exception to the rule and betraying sculpture, this artist who has continued to paint in solitude, true to himself, in a constant effort to surpass himself, imperturbable and aware, free from self-satisfaction. As if the true story of Aldo Cerdonio were to restart today...”
These words were followed by our enthusiasm in taking an interest in this artist, who has recovered (so to speak) a significant position in the scenario of contemporary Italian art in public and private areas. He is an artist of the old style, but he is modern in the feelings he displays and in the way he proposes his images, which are almost ossified through his strong poetics, existential and “resistential”, having not surrendered to research tout court: indeed sign and colour are given a brand new aspect, a cultured one, so much so that it may be said that Italian drawing has been saved from falling into oblivion. Sign is presented as essentiality, as love for shapes that gradually acquire charm and mystery, as the ability to naturally play its role in life and existence, as a dream translated into notes. Aldo Cerdonio, who as early as 1958 and 1962, that is at the height of “existential realism”, an extremely profound artistic movement, exhibited his works at the Bergamini gallery in Milan, a sacred centre of Italian art, and who has always proposed image painting, mythicized his poetics in a translation faithful to everyday life.
That is life as it offers itself daily, through the eyes of a high-ranking government officer, as our artist also was, devoted to representing soldiers, helmets and buglers, women and trees. Memory is again focussed on reality, through the everyday life of barracks, and the structural scheme of his drawings becomes a philosophical hint for this enchanting narrative style, which captures the eye in a vortex of carnal nudity. Even trees, which also have a major role in these drawings, either as a trunk fast in the ground or as an explosion of foliage and greenery, are a sign of life in the same way as women are often represented. Colours only just mark shapes and silhouettes, all that is needed to give substance to the image trailing behind a pen-and-ink drawing. The memory of these objects, of these landscapes and figures, leads to a range of cycles which are “Women and Soldiers”, “Archaeological Finds”, “City Chronicles”, and then “Two Classical Cycles”, which absorb sequences from Magna Graecia, and finally the “Places from Memory”. Here is therefore a significant part of the serious work which from far-off years Aldo Cerdonio offers to all Italian art, or rather to the world of Italian art, by drawing and colouring the world and mankind, with a black and red ball-point pen, but also with ink or pencil. The hand sketches the classical, simple substance of the world, the world that surrounds us, and which thanks to the artist’s magic ability, offers itself as entirely new, as if it had just been discovered. The miracle has just taken place, and this general with his cultured and proud heart, produces his frescos in the style of Bruno Saetti, from Venice, a landmark in Italian art, master of our artist, to whom he delivered the gifts of essentiality, narrativity, subdued colours and a personalised style, as displayed today by Cerdonio.
And, had it not been for the years it has behind it, this painting is so young that it oozes with novelty, and this sign is so magic that it depicts the world as if it were seen for the first time. (traduzione Interpres sas - Giussano)