I became friends with Luciano Regoli when I lost my mother, one of the most difficult times of my life. To have her again close to me I came up with the idea of asking my many painter friends to paint a portrait of her. Of course, they were to use some photographs of her. Instead of simply picking out a few photos among the many available, Luciano Regoli gathered them all and shortly thereafter handed me a sequence of portraits in which my Mother appeared of all ages and in all fashions. The verisimilitude was so striking that I was touched by it. Not only did Luciano show psychological intuition, “rediscovering” my Mother – who he had never met – simply through these images, but he also proved his artistic talent, as if remembering or reliving, and achieved great painting by finding its roots primarily within himself. I kept turning to his talent for portraits of family members and then of myself when I engaged in public life. With renewed attention I followed his evolution that appeared to reach the highest and most complete stages when dealing with portraiture within the framework of the most noble figurative expression. An anthology that morphed into a gallery, a collection that then became a museum. Italian and foreign personalities, a single individual, family groups. These traits never changed and in time revealed a refined, lived, and meditated stylistic maturity and an increasingly elaborate and perhaps suffered artistic awareness. One day, I understood painting was not enough for Luciano. He cultivated it, he sublimated within it, yet something was missing. Writing. He achieved it with the journals he kept during some trips he took in distant lands; when he illustrated them, giving birth to travel journals, he was able to blend intimately writing and painting. Another side of this artist who was able to expand his techniques of expression without betraying himself while maintaining the uniqueness of his creative inspirations. As his painting reveals at each stage and his life at each turning point, still much may be expected of him.
Roma,
April 20 2004
Gian
Luigi Rondi
Vitalità
della tradizione pittorica Europea nella pittura di Luciano Regoli
I became friends with Luciano Regoli when I lost my mother, one of the most difficult times of my life. To have her again close to me I came up with the idea of asking my many painter friends to paint a portrait of her. Of course, they were to use some photographs of her. Instead of simply picking out a few photos among the many available, Luciano Regoli gathered them all and shortly thereafter handed me a sequence of portraits in which my Mother appeared of all ages and in all fashions. The verisimilitude was so striking that I was touched by it. Not only did Luciano show psychological intuition, “rediscovering” my Mother – who he had never met – simply through these images, but he also proved his artistic talent, as if remembering or reliving, and achieved great painting by finding its roots primarily within himself. I kept turning to his talent for portraits of family members and then of myself when I engaged in public life. With renewed attention I followed his evolution that appeared to reach the highest and most complete stages when dealing with portraiture within the framework of the most noble figurative expression. An anthology that morphed into a gallery, a collection that then became a museum. Italian and foreign personalities, a single individual, family groups. These traits never changed and in time revealed a refined, lived, and meditated stylistic maturity and an increasingly elaborate and perhaps suffered artistic awareness. One day, I understood painting was not enough for Luciano. He cultivated it, he sublimated within it, yet something was missing. Writing. He achieved it with the journals he kept during some trips he took in distant lands; when he illustrated them, giving birth to travel journals, he was able to blend intimately writing and painting. Another side of this artist who was able to expand his techniques of expression without betraying himself while maintaining the uniqueness of his creative inspirations. As his painting reveals at each stage and his life at each turning point, still much may be expected of him.
