Trento Longaretti (27 September 1916 – 7 June 2017) was an Italian painter. He studied at the Brera Academy in the 1930s, where he was taught by renowned artists, including painters Aldo Carpi and Pompeo Borra, and sculptors Francesco Messina and Marino Marini. He stated that painting is an "elixir for long life", and continued to paint and exhibit as a centenarian.
He was on the fringes of the Corrente movement started by his friends and classmates in the 1930s to oppose the Novecento Italiano movement that was influenced by Italian Fascism. He was drafted by the Italian Army in 1939, completing tours of duty that until 1945 interrupted his artwork, though still enabling him to attend several exhibitions, including the Mostra degli artisti in armi exhibit at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.
The themes of his post-war works involved more sacred art, and he adopted an anti-war stance and opposition to violence as a result of his wartime service, which features prominently in works depicting mothers opposing violence. Humility features in many of his works, including the depiction of characters such as beggars, vagrants, and vagabonds, and themes such as loneliness, abandonment, exile, pilgrimage, and poverty. Longaretti stated that he preferred creating works that are "accessible and immediately enjoyable". His oil paintings have been described as dense and oily like those of Paul Cézanne, and his style has similarities to the fantasy settings of Marc Chagall and "pictorial culture" of Egon Schiele. His still life paintings have been described as "delicate and almost religious".
He became involved in the Italian figurative art movement of the mid-1900s. His growing stature as a painter in Italy led to exhibitions at increasingly prestigious events, such as the Venice Biennale and Rome Quadriennale. It ultimately led to Longaretti earning the "Chair of Painting" and becoming the director of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo in 1953, a position he held until he retired from it in 1978. He maintained studios in the città alta of Bergamo and in Corniglia within the Cinque Terre which he described as one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Family Longaretti was born on 27 September 1916 in the comune of Treviglio, in the Province of Bergamo in Lombardy. He was the ninth of thirteen children "...io ero il nono di tredici fratelli." of his father Alessandro Longaretti and mother Maria Teresa Casirati. His parents named him after another sibling named Trento who died in infancy before Longaretti's birth. "Uno era morto piccolino, prima della mia nascita. Si chiamava Trento, così quando sono nato mi hanno dato il suo nome." One of his sisters was named Trieste and brothers named Carlo, Giacinto, and Amanzio. He had fond memories of Christmas with his family, particularly the tree of zoccoli.
Since before his birth his family would vacation in Valpiana, a comune in the frazione of Serina north of the city of Bergamo. There in the 1940s, his older brother Giacinto took many photographs that he captioned before his death in 1945.
In 1945 he married Elsa Ferrari, whom he had met before being drafted and deployed during World War II. They had three children, Serena born in 1946, Franco born in 1948, and Maddalena born in 1954.
His brother Carlo disappeared in 1976.
In his late 90s, he was described by L'Eco di Bergamo as having a firm hand and a "mind that travels". "...lui, a novantasette anni, ha la mano ferma e il cervello che viaggia..." Each Christmas, he presented a gift of a painting to each of his children. "Io amo fare regali e, ai miei figli, dono sempre un quadro."
Education
He attributed to his first grade teacher Maciocchi "understanding my primary talent in life", who nurtured his talent by giving him postcards to copy. From 1930 until his graduation in 1936 he attended the Liceo Artistico di Brera, an art-oriented high school in Milan affiliated with the Brera Academy. In 1933, Longaretti and his friend Gianluigi Uboldi embarked on a bicycle trip through Italy, starting in Milan and passing through Florence and Rome, to the east coast city of Pescara, then north along the east coast to Venice before returning to Milan. In 1934, they toured all of Sicily by bicycle.
He enrolled in the architecture program at the Polytechnic University of Milan and a fine arts program at Brera Academy in 1936, ultimately choosing to pursue the latter where he became a student of Aldo Carpi and his assistant Felice Filippini. He studied there until receiving his degree in 1939, during which time he was classmates with Arnaldo Badoli, Aldo Bergolli, Bruno Cassinari, Edmondo Dobrzanski, Ibrahim Kodra, Ennio Morlotti, and Italo Valenti. Some of his favourite professors included Carpi, sculptors Francesco Messina and Marino Marini, and painters Pompeo Borra and Mauro Reggiani. He said of Carpi that he was not just an art teacher, but a teacher of life, and that Carpi would correct the work of his students only infrequently, allowing them to develop a freedom in painting. Throughout his studies at Brera he continued to reside in Treviglio, to which he would return by train each day once he completed that day's classes.
Longaretti first exhibited his works in 1936 in a series of "Littoriali dell'Arte" exhibitions and at various artist collectives in Bergamo, Genoa and Milan. It was at this time that Afro, Badoli, Bergolli, Renato Birolli, Carpi, Cassinari, Cherchi, Alfredo Chighine, Grosso, Renato Guttuso, Dino Lanaro, Giuseppe Migneco, Mantica, Morlotti, Aligi Sassu, Ernesto Treccani, Valenti, and Emilio Vedova (and later Giuseppe Ajmone and Kodra) established a movement against the Novecento Italiano ("l'antinovecentismo") to pursue opportunities offered by Cubism, a movement they named Corrente. Longaretti did not participate in many of the foundational group discussions or late night gatherings at Milan cafés because he returned to Treviglio after classes, but he spent most of his days with this group (particularly Morlotti, Birolli, Guttuso, Sassu, and Vedova) which would work on "Picassian paintings". "Ma l'indomani ero ancora con loro e passavamo insieme la giornata a lavorare a certi quadri picassiani." The artists also opposed the academic art style. The Corrente movement and its followers significantly distanced themselves from the "regime" of art.
Morlotti, who was from Bergamo, and Longaretti established a friendship that would continue until Morlotti's death in 1999. As a result of this friendship, Morlotti participated in the Premio Bergamo in 1941 and 1942. Years later, Morlotti stated that the two friendships he valued most were those with Romano Trojani and Longaretti, the latter with whom he had spent much time discussing the river Adda passing through their hometown. Longaretti referred to Morlotti as a dear friend.
In the famous 15 December 1939 editorial in the movement's magazine Corrente, the group reiterated its anti-fascist commitment in opposition to the National Fascist Party headed by Benito Mussolini by promoting an artist project about "all aspects of the reality in which we live in our time in history", which Longaretti fully embraced by portraying themes of humility.
Career Upon completion of his degree studies at Brera in early 1939, he was drafted by the Italian military for service in World War II. He was deployed to Slovenia, and later to Sicily and Albania, and when his tours of duty were complete, he would participate in art exhibitions. He continued to paint during his service, even when on the front lines, committing to canvas images of "dramatic testimonials" considered prohibited, such as Albanian villages razed by Italian troops. At the end of the war, he also began working on frescoes, glass art, and mosaic art. In 1942, he exhibited works at the Venice Biennale and at the Mostra degli artisti in armi ("Artists in arms") exhibit at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, where he presented three watercolours and seven pen drawings, all having a war theme. By this time, he was a sergeant for the Genio Ferrovieri. His first personal exhibition occurred in 1943 and was presented by Raffaello Giolli at the Galleria La Rotonda in Bergamo. He dedicated himself to teaching and the creation of works of sacred art in 1945. He would exhibit at the Venice Biennale again in 1948, 1950, 1956, and 2011, and was invited to exhibit at the Rome Quadriennale in 1952.
When he married in 1945, his paintings were not selling, but his art diploma ensured him an income. In 1953 he won a national competition to become the director at the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, becoming its Chair of Painting and succeeding Achille Funi for the position. He would be its director until 1978.
He resided and worked in both Bergamo in Lombardy and Cinque Terre in Liguria. He also owned a home in Framura, which he first visited in the 1970s. He maintained an "elegant studio" in the Città alta of Bergamo, which was jam-packed with paintings and books, and three in Corniglia, a frazione in the comune of Vernazza within Cinque Terre. He described Cinque Terre, which he first visited in the 1970s after discussions with residents in Framura, as one of the most beautiful places in the world, particularly its terraces, vineyards, and mountains. He considered it his adoptive home and returned there to paint when he needed tranquility, spending holidays and about four months a year there, as there was little tourism there to distract him. In 2002, he created two stained glass windows that he installed in the community's Church of San Pietro.
At the first studio he established in Corniglia, he tended the land and harvested fruit from the trees. He enjoyed walking along the terraces and through the countryside between his studios.
In 1964, he and other artists were invited to meet Pope Paul VI at the Sistine Chapel. In 2009, he was among the 500 artists in all fields (including painting, sculpture, cinema, theatre, dance, music, photography, and architecture) to receive an invitation from Gianfranco Ravasi, a cardinal and president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, to meet Pope Benedict XVI. The pope had requested the gathering to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the letter to artists written by Pope John Paul II in 1999 and to renew the relationship between the Catholic Church and artists.
Longaretti stated that a young artist should persist, because "if there is talent, it will surely emerge", but also believed that one is born an artist. "Io sono del parere che artisti si nasce. Adesso li fabbricano, anche, ma se non-c'è il dono..." For him, painting was an "elixir for long life" that he could not do without.
Style
Longaretti stated that he preferred creating works that are "accessible and immediately enjoyable" by the public, and considered himself as "isolated in the panorama of Italian art". Unlike his friend Morlotti, Longaretti had a more reserved political and religious demeanour, which would also establish itself in the subjects he chose for his art. He was part of several movements, including Corrente and "Figurativismo Italiano", an Italian figurative art movement of the mid 1900s, the latter of which he is "an old master" according to journalist and art critic Giovanni Gazzeano. Sebastiano Grasso said the works Longaretti produced were in a range of styles between Corrente and expressionism echoing the styles of Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Chaïm Soutine. Longaretti stated that his painting may have expressionist tendencies, but not with the connotation of tragedy common in the German school of expressionism.