I. Shadows and butterflies
by Emilio Isgrò
I have absorbed and enjoyed the intrepid painting of Francesco De Francesco—depicting dreams and butterflies, but also leaden nightmares—since the beginning, when the doctor-artist enjoyed portraying his schoolmates (and I among them) who lined up to have one of his sketches, his signature. De Francesco generously gave his friends sheets with shapes and colors never seen before, drawn with an expertise that, given the age of the artist and his audience, I would not hesitate to call “Mozartian.”
That childhood time, however, is now over and De Francesco’s capacity to amaze has not withered. His painting style is now superbly mature, of course, and yet not without that absolute innocence that art, even the most sophisticated, always has. If you then ask me what his means are, and what his world is, then I have to move in directions that are privileged for me. I have to replace a possible stylistic-formal reading of his work (far from problematic, given the quality) with a biographical-testimonial investigation that does not destroy the expressive texture of the work (made up of lines and colors) but rather exalts it and dissolves it in vibrant, drunken matter.
It is the vibration, I think, of the light of the Tindari or Capo Calavà, when the storm invades the stretch of sea in front of Spine Sante—a stone's throw from Milazzo and in front of the Aeolian Islands—and almost immediately, between wind and trumpets of air, in a flash the sun emerges, as if nothing had happened. That's right: as if nothing had happened...In short, things happen and they happen furiously, and perhaps turbidly and the artist takes note of this with medical detachment. Just as, if it is possible to approach two very different artists, the former doctor Burri clinically acknowledges that the red gash on the sac is a stomach ulcer. Although formally flawless, I mean, De Francesco's painting is the bearer of discomfort, and it is the discomfort of those who know all too well that their own experience of the world is not exactly the golden experience of memory. And yet memory can serve to credibly structure a discourse that has features of reality and not of utopia.
And here, then, these impeccably painted images refer us to a world that is perfectly recognizable even by those who have never known it: the church of San Vito, the church of Carmine… Then the street vendors and the festive lights of a Sicily that no longer exists. The enlarged gulfs and beaches of fine sand. Because these are the images that an Italian from the South carries with him, even having emigrated elsewhere, perhaps as a gift to his Lombard, Emilian or German wife. And of course to the children who will come, and to the children of the children.
Of course, this is not all of De Francesco’s painting. In other cases, it gains complexity, as he competes with certain “visionary” experiences that the Twentieth century has handed over. Shall we then make the mistake of talking about metaphysics? Will we needlessly call the usual Alberto Savinio to witness? Or will we simply enjoy, rightfully so, the extraordinary, unprecedented competition that a woman of flesh and blood can engage in with a marble statue? And where is the life? In the statue or in the flesh? The disturbing play of shadows that the artist puts in place does not allow us to give an answer, since everything seems real and nothing is. Neither the symbols nor the objects. Only the light that shines on the beach of Spine Sante is true, in front of the motionless forms of Vulcano and Lipari in the background. And the changing and delightful fantasy of a visionary painter who exorcizes ghosts with ghosts is true. But here, in the presence of such a homeopathic exorcism, the image of the painter-doctor that I evoked at the beginning and almost automatically extended to Burri returns. Not to reduce the weight of an artist, much less to play with his biography, but rather to point out, precisely at this moment, now and here, how an excess of “professionalism” (and therefore routine) can harm that truth of art to which, in its own way, De Francesco is also a bearer.
That childhood time, however, is now over and De Francesco’s capacity to amaze has not withered. His painting style is now superbly mature, of course, and yet not without that absolute innocence that art, even the most sophisticated, always has. If you then ask me what his means are, and what his world is, then I have to move in directions that are privileged for me. I have to replace a possible stylistic-formal reading of his work (far from problematic, given the quality) with a biographical-testimonial investigation that does not destroy the expressive texture of the work (made up of lines and colors) but rather exalts it and dissolves it in vibrant, drunken matter.
It is the vibration, I think, of the light of the Tindari or Capo Calavà, when the storm invades the stretch of sea in front of Spine Sante—a stone's throw from Milazzo and in front of the Aeolian Islands—and almost immediately, between wind and trumpets of air, in a flash the sun emerges, as if nothing had happened. That's right: as if nothing had happened...In short, things happen and they happen furiously, and perhaps turbidly and the artist takes note of this with medical detachment. Just as, if it is possible to approach two very different artists, the former doctor Burri clinically acknowledges that the red gash on the sac is a stomach ulcer. Although formally flawless, I mean, De Francesco's painting is the bearer of discomfort, and it is the discomfort of those who know all too well that their own experience of the world is not exactly the golden experience of memory. And yet memory can serve to credibly structure a discourse that has features of reality and not of utopia.
And here, then, these impeccably painted images refer us to a world that is perfectly recognizable even by those who have never known it: the church of San Vito, the church of Carmine… Then the street vendors and the festive lights of a Sicily that no longer exists. The enlarged gulfs and beaches of fine sand. Because these are the images that an Italian from the South carries with him, even having emigrated elsewhere, perhaps as a gift to his Lombard, Emilian or German wife. And of course to the children who will come, and to the children of the children.
Of course, this is not all of De Francesco’s painting. In other cases, it gains complexity, as he competes with certain “visionary” experiences that the Twentieth century has handed over. Shall we then make the mistake of talking about metaphysics? Will we needlessly call the usual Alberto Savinio to witness? Or will we simply enjoy, rightfully so, the extraordinary, unprecedented competition that a woman of flesh and blood can engage in with a marble statue? And where is the life? In the statue or in the flesh? The disturbing play of shadows that the artist puts in place does not allow us to give an answer, since everything seems real and nothing is. Neither the symbols nor the objects. Only the light that shines on the beach of Spine Sante is true, in front of the motionless forms of Vulcano and Lipari in the background. And the changing and delightful fantasy of a visionary painter who exorcizes ghosts with ghosts is true. But here, in the presence of such a homeopathic exorcism, the image of the painter-doctor that I evoked at the beginning and almost automatically extended to Burri returns. Not to reduce the weight of an artist, much less to play with his biography, but rather to point out, precisely at this moment, now and here, how an excess of “professionalism” (and therefore routine) can harm that truth of art to which, in its own way, De Francesco is also a bearer.