Antonio Morato Biography
Antonio Morato was a painter born in Este in 1903. Despite the closed cultural environment of his home city, Morato made his debut in an exhibition of Paduan artists together with many other renowned artists such as Prampolini, Spazzapan, Depero, Novati and Dalla Zorza. Although he preferred to stay in Padua rather than move like many of his colleagues, Morato was well informed of the latest European artistic trends and frequented the local avant-garde artistic milieu. Padua, however, was home to some avant-garde art galleries of the time, such as Alfredo Bordin's Gallery "Al Centesimo" and the "Cavallino", where avant-garde exhibitions were held.
Morato carried out important fresco works for the Chamber of Commerce, including two large canvases in the reception room entitled "Agriculture and Commerce" and "Industry and Transport", as well as four smaller canvases representing "The Four Seasons". At the same time, he worked on other important frescoes in Bolzano, Brunico, Padua, Venice and Rome.
The influences of Picasso and neo-cubism, together with the innovation of Arturo Martini, would mark the evolution of Morato's painting. He would move away from the pursuit of Mantegna's perfectionism and the warmer, foggier urban landscapes of the 1930s and 1940s, until the decomposition of the figures of the last years of his life.
Morato created other important fresco works such as the "Student Hall" at the Palazzo del Bo in Padua, the "Apse of the Church of the Holy Family" in 1940 and the "Via Crucis" of the same church in Padua in 1939. "The artists know how to capture what circulates in the air, like birds present the storm. We are animals with glasses, endowed with instinctive receptivity", said Morato.
