MORANDI, GIORGIO

born July 20, 1890, Bologna, Italy died June 18, 1964, Bologna Italian painter and etcher whose simple, geometric still lifes of bottles, jars, and boxes were an important contribution to the development of formalism in 20th-century art. Morandi cannot be closely identified with a particular school of painting. He first exhibited in 1914 in Bologna with the Futurist painters, and in 191819 he was associated with Giorgio De Chirico and Carlo Carr, leaders of the Metaphysical school. He developed a contemplative approach to art that, directed by a highly refined formal sensibility, gave his quiet landscapes and disarmingly simple still-life compositions a characteristic delicacy of tone and extraordinary subtlety of design. His gentle, lyrical colours are subdued and limited to clay-toned whites, drab greens, and umber browns, with occasional highlights of terra-cotta. Morandi's paintings of bottles and jars convey a mood of contemplative repose reminiscent of the work of Piero della Francesca, an Italian Renaissance artist he admired. As instructor of etching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna from 1930 to 1956, Morandi had a profound influence on succeeding Italian graphic artists.