Description
From the preface by Lorenzo Mattotti for Notes on the landscape, Edizioni Tricromia 2008 Rome
… Observing a valley, a curve, a bump, tree, shadow, river or coast, often gives me a “musical” emotion, a sort of feeling of the landscape. What is this feeling really built from? What I wanted to fix was a space reinterpreted by my gaze; it was the lines, the curves, the valleys and the shadows that passed before my eyes. It was the melodies that had to be drawn. It was those distortions, the stretches, the rhythmic spots that I had to try to learn to paint. Learn an alphabet of curves, against curves, spots, lines, thick, thin, dashed strokes, which allowed me to represent all emotions on paper.
… I now believe that we can speak of a “landscape in motion” where the movement is that of the eye in the landscape. “
Lorenzo Mattotti , one of the most important Italian illustrators and cartoonists. He made his debut in the late seventies as a comic book author, and in the early eighties he founded, with other designers, the Valvoline Group. In 1984 he made Fuochi which, welcomed as an event in the world of comics, has won important international awards. With Accidents , Mr. Spartacus , Doctor Nefasto , The Man at the Window and many other illustrated books, up to Stigmata , Mattotti’s work has evolved according to a constant of great coherence, but in the eclectic sign of those who always choose to try themselves in the new.
Lorenzo Mattotti’s books are translated all over the world. He has published illustrations and covers in newspapers and magazines such as “The New Yorker”, “Le Monde”, “Das Magazin”, “Nouvel Observateur”, “Corriere della Sera”, “Repubblica” and “Vanity Fair”. For his childhood he illustrated various books including Pinocchio and Eugenio who won, in 1993, the Bratislava Grand Prix, one of the highest awards in children’s publishing. .
