Drawings of Ferruccio Marchetti

Exhibition catalogue - Southeastern College, Athens 20.9 - 2.10 1988

Ferruccio Marchetti - Drawings

Seldom is art revealed in its bizarre form as with this painter, Ferruccio Marchetti. Lines and colours break through the imagery world when looking at it merely naively and bring about in contrast a serene setting by coming together behind the lines, so to speak.

There is, for example, a painting of his in existence with the title "House in the Green". The picture depicts where Ferruccio Marchetti lives: below Urbino, the birthplace of Raffael, in a former house of a shepherd located on green hills, surrounded by a countrysite with sheep still forming unusual patterns, and towards Pesaro where he had a gallery.

Italian art is known to everyone fro the period of the Renaissance. By contrast, many of the modern artists who show more their works in Milano, as did Ferruccio Marchetti since there he studied art, are less known. It reflects that many Greeks find it difficult to identify themselves with modern trends in the arts, and even more so to be in accord with them.

The remarkable story about this painter is that he achieved enormous success while still only an art student. For people would not just buy his paintings right away, but more so they would order paintings from him, so that he would pick up the phone and note down seven more paintings were required to satisfy this art market having gone crazy. The more he thought about this trend, the less desire he had to go down that path. He left the art world or more precisely the art market and became a teacher for the next fifteen years when he went into early retirement. During that time of teaching he did not paint, but kept a diary.

In recent years more and more painters feel that problem or rather pressure of the art market: what subjects should they paint in what manner for the art market seems to dictate subject matter and style. It leaves little freedom to the artist. Rather they either heed the advise and conditions of art gallery owners and art dealers or else they remain in oblivion.

Ferruccio Marchetti evaded this dilemma at an early stage in his life. By entering the teaching professions, he could survive by other means. Still, he kept up his reflections about the meaning of art, and, in particular, of painting. After years of controversies between himself and the demands of the being a truly outstanding artists, all noted down in that diary, he came upon the question as which kind of mythology does apply nowadays to the modern artist?

The question became more concrete once he started to relate to the mythology of Orpheus. It implies that equally an artist stands to loose a lot if he turns around and looks back upon what he has created in the past.

Thomas Müller, a German artist living in Athens, would say, that "there is a high risk of losing oneself in the structures one has created."

Ferruccio Marchetti's work presents some answers to this self-reflective search. He says that the mythology of Orpheus does not apply, strictly speaking, but there is in every painting evident an element of duality and contradiction best expressed by the dispute between 'mine/yours'.

Inspired by the landscape of Italy, and at the same time filled with questions about the weakness of mankind in the light of powerful structures, Ferruccio Marchetti transforms art into a challege of 'see for yourself'. It means that everyone needs to focus on those things which matter the most in our lives, even though there will exist that division between 'mine' and 'yours'!

Hatto Fischer

September 1988

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Drawings of Ferruccio Marchetti