E. Martini Biography
Egidio Martini was born in Venice in 1919 and dedicated himself to painting from a young age. His early works show the strengths and weaknesses of youth: an impetuous willingness to try everything and explore every avenue without prejudice, just to find the right tone for his voice, alongside a continuous and fragmented range of results. Martini had a strong imagination and broad talent. However, due to several life events, his artistic activity was put on hold, as he pursued other avenues such as art restoration and art history.
To understand Martini's painting of the time and judge it on its merit, it is necessary to consider it in the historical context in which it developed, taking into account the cultural roots and particular taste of the lively Venetian artistic environment of 1930-1945. During that period, figurative trends dominated the local art scene. After 1945, these trends expanded to adopt international approaches, including abstract and informal forms, which still dominate culture and the art market today. Between 1925 and 1945, Venice witnessed the last explosion of a unique Venetian artistic style that evolved from the last great artists of the 18th century. In this environment the young Egidio Martini tried to develop his work.
The foundation and first intention of his work was adherence to truth, which he saw as a technical exercise and preparation for the creation of suitable works of art. Paintings such as the Giudecca Canal taken against the light, the Campo della Maddalena, the Papadopoli Garden and the Furatela Canal, all produced before the 1940s, exemplify his early work. After the war, Martini was forced by various contingencies to concentrate exclusively on the restoration of ancient paintings, while continuing to paint. In this period he exhibited in many exhibitions, including some at Bevilacqua la Masa, and held a solo exhibition in 1944 at the Botteghe d'Arte of San Marco.
In the 1950s Martini dedicated himself entirely to restoration work and his pictorial activity was significantly reduced. However, he partially resumed painting between 1954-56 when he created paintings of Venetian and mountain figures and landscapes. These works finally reveal Martini's formal and expressive maturity in his paintings, albeit late and limited, born from a more personal feeling. His paintings were soft, restful, treated without shadows, executed in broad brushstrokes with fresh, sensual and rich colors. If Martini had concentrated exclusively on painting, he perhaps would not have been extraordinary, but nevertheless he would have been one of the most respected figurative artists of his time in Venice, because he possessed exceptional natural pictorial gifts which with intelligence and cultured originality he could have improved and sustained.
