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[note 2.22]

[Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1948-49]

Once he found his voice, Italian painter Giorgio Morandi painted the same limited group of ordinary objects—”bottles, bowls boxes, cups, vases, pitchers and jars”—over and over again. Each day he would arranged and rearranged this handful of objects— maybe move the blue one to the right, maybe open the shade a little more, and then begin again.

By restricting his range of objects, and his palate, he was able to return to the studio each day, and push more deeply into the paint.

By focusing on the shapes and colors and light, he was able to turn them into pure objects, archetypal.

Maybe it was Morandi’s way of examining what it means to perceive.

~~~

Moving the same few bottles across a page—it’s what every book feels like at some point, right. I’ve been working on this book about my friendship with Richard for over three years now, and I wonder sometimes if that’s what I’m doing, if that’s why he’s still here. Maybe he’s become my five bottles, and every day I need to rearrange my memory, to look at the story from a different angle.

Every day I need to paint him again, to capture the light.