From high on a staircase that seems to climb to the sky, three children look out over the vastness of a countryside stretching as far as the eye can see. The fixity of the vision, the silence hovering over it, and the strong light clearly outlining the volumes create a magical suspension. They await the revelation of the mystery of life, but only one of them dares wait for it without fear.
Observatory
Carlo Bertocci
Castell’Azzara, 21 May 1946
While working toward his degree in architecture under Eugenio Battisti, Carlo Bertocci also took courses in life drawing at the Accademia di Belle Arti under the guidance of Emanuele Cavalli. In 1974, at the Schema gallery in Florence, he exhibited a cycle of works on “figures of time”; subsequently his art dealt with themes of “Looking-Seeing” and the “New Beauty” in pictures which he showed in 1981 at the Zona gallery in Florence. That same year he met the critic Italo Mussa, who was creating the “Cultured Painting” movement, and Bertocci became one of its most sensitive interpreters. During this decade he made images that transcend reality, like dreams or fantastic, ineffable, imaginary, distant, and silent stories. In 1988 he presented his works in Helsinki, Istanbul, Ankara, and Tel Aviv in a travelling show called “Diptlych” and held numerous solo and collective exhibitions from 1991 to 2012 in Il Polittico Gallery in Rome. In 1999 the artist took part in the 13th Quadriennial of Art in Rome, “Proiezioni 2000,” and in 2000 held a solo show at the Museo Marini in Florence.
Since 1991 Bertocci has also worked in sculpture, making numerous terracottas, ceramics, and bronzes, including the monumental Boy Looking into the Distance (That Little Bunch of Flowers), made for Castell’Azzara. He has painted official portraits for the gallery of presidents of the Italian Senate in Palazzo Madama and for the series of presidents of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, of which he is a member since 1997.
