Aldo Aytano: Biography
Born in Lucca in 1954.
Professor of Art at the Liceo Artistico di Lucca.
His early works were landscapes of the Garfagnana area, favourite subjects being the Alpi Apuane, but also alpine meadows, derelict farmhouses, stone cabins with thatched roofs, the silence of which is emphasised by the snow covering them. The work produced in the 80's was therefore entirely of mountain themes with few "primitive" paintings.
In the second half of the 80's the artist's attention was drawn away from hills and woodlands of the Garfagnana to the quarries of the Altissimo and he stayed there in order to study marble in great detail and the men quarrying it, cutting away the mountainside to extract this precious resource: a stone that is as white and cold as snow. A series of studies resulted the subjects of which are stone, blocks of marble, slumps and, of course, the quarries. This experience culminated in the production in 1987 of a dossier of collotype prints of the Tuscan landscape. The editors of the dossier "Immagini" were the Alinari brothers of Florence with an introduction by the famous writer from Lucca, Guglielmo Petroni.
In 1990 all the graphic art produced in the quarries was exhibited and promoted in the exhibition "Il Mestiere dell'Arte", organised by the municipal council of Pietrasanta (LU). At the same time the artist produced a series of oil paintings of the landscape around Volterra whose rolling hillsides seemed a pleasant relief after the characteristic cuts in the wounded mountains and the extreme verticality of the landscape where marble is quarried. The work of the 90's shows a search for new techniques but above all a search for new subject matter.
In January 1998 the artist took a new box of watercolours with him on his first trip to India which is echoed in numerous paintings with a strong use of yellow and orange. And it is a painting executed with these very same watercolours, "Autunno a Forci" (Autumn at Forci), painted that same year, that marked the start of a prolific period of artistic production that saw the use of completely new colours recently discovered in India that were later to become a hallmark of his painting. The year 1998 ended with an exhibition at the "Magazzino di Antonio" at Molina di Quosa (PI) where, together with two other artists, Carlo Carozzi and Gianfranco Saracini, he exhibited both the small watercolours executed in January in India and works painted that year that all have the same colours in common: intense vibrant yellow.
In 1999, still at the "Magazzino di Antonio", he held a personal exhibition where included among the many exhibits were two paintings on show for the first time the subjects of which were later to become the artist's favourites: the signalman's hut, "Casello di Venturina", and a pinewood in summer, "Estate a Riva Verde" (Summer at Riva Verde). From this time on, the artist concentrated on the stretch of coastline between Leghorn and Grosseto and the area around Follonica where he found the perfect places to inspire him.
The year 2000 was an important year for exhibitions and maybe also quite unique until now because this was the year when he took part in an exhibition entitled "Il Viaggio delle forme e dei colori" (A Journey through Form and Colour), promoted by the Soprintendenza ai Beni e ai Monumenti di Pisa (The Superintendency of Cultural Heritage) and organised by the Pinacoteca di Volterra (Volterra Art Gallery). More than 18 were exhibited many of which were works painted in Follonica.
2001 was a highly productive year for the artist varying from small and very detailed watercolours, because of the choice of subject matter and the details, to large-scale oil paintings. One in particular called "Una notte piena di speranza" (A Night of Hope) tackles the theme of non-European immigrants and their struggle to find a place to sleep for the night. The painting shows the abandoned signalman's hut at Venturina late at night with a light from one of the windows shining onto the railway line.
In 2002 at the summer exhibition of the "Soffitta nella strada" in Sarzana the artist showed the finished "Una notte piena di speranza" together with other smaller works on the theme of the "signalman's hut" and "summer pine forests" at the exhibition called "Tra luce e colore" (Between Light and Colour), organised in an art gallery in Via Fiasella.
In 2003 he showed once again at the summer exhibition of the "Soffitta nella strada" in Sarzana with the exhibtion "Fra i pini il mare" (Among Pine Woods the Sea) where he showed two new large works, a signalman's hut at night, the "Casello di Nozzano" and a brightly-lit pine wood "Tempesta di luce a Riva Verde" (Stream of Light at Riva Verde) with other smaller works inspired by the pine woods around the bay of Viareggio.
In 2004, at the "Murabilia" flower and horticultural show, the artist presented his most recent works mainly depicting the pine woods of the Mediterranean.