To Anna Martinazzi ( 22nd July 1972)

 There is, necessarily, an artistic continuity, as the false discontinuity regarding art and that which consumer society would wish art to become in order to better subjugate it... All hopes are permitted to artists who are worthy of this name, and the suggestion of adventure has never been so fabulous, far from all the fashionable conventionalities which the conventional critics would like to substitute for art.  The destruction-creation proposed by Nietzsche, promoted by the Dada movement ( Tzara’s and Picabia’s one, poles apart from the frauds pretending to be neo-Dada and from their shameful official prosecutions...), has found a development as autre as normal in the lyrical abstraction and in the action-painting since about thirty years now, proposing a polyvalence of ways which will take the time of an indefinitely long era autre for their possibilities to be exhausted – possibilities, not considered from the point of view of mere consumption,  it’s not that the problem, but rather, possibilities of aesthetic-artistic enchantment, together withh all that it implies both intuitively and epistemologically speaking. Thus, what a joy to meet an authentic painter who develops essentially, being an artist totally worthy of this name: Anna Martinazzi, as a logical prosecution of Hans Hoffmann, De Kooning, Sécan e Riopelle, proposes to us some “works of art” totally worthy of this name as they include a dramatic content, a structural creation open to other enchanting liberties, on the more authentic path of the eternal art, where continuity implies overcoming, in the wonderful adventure of creations – enchantment worthy of what must deeply be both “the artist” and the “ lover of art”, facing the reality of a work of art.  ( Michel Tapié)

Anna Martinazzi's pictorial work is essentially artistic and, for its own part, demonstrates a complete detachment from all of the present-day jumble which will never have anything whatsoever to do with art.
For that reason she forms part of those rare artists who in the midst of the ugly and opportunistic confusion of the so-called "milieu de l'art de notre planète" are the only authentic artists. Her paintings emanate an intense artistic-aesthetic content which enchants and fascinates, and thus, meanwhile, they attract the authentic art lovers and by way of which her own path of research and creation inexhaustibly goes on. All that wonderfully bring us very far away (at a higher level), far from the banality of the current so-called artistic conformisms. Continue this way, Anna Martinazzi... on the other hand there is no need of telling her, because through her work she “ is”, and enchants the true art “lovers” in what they expect from the artist highly worthy of this qualification. With our hearty thanks, we applaud the future of her splendid continuity! ( Michel Tapié, autumn 1978)
 

To Anna Martinazzi, an authentic "painter"...and continue!

It is a great pleasure for me to present the new artistic creation of a real painter : those of Anna Martinazzi. Her paintings happily continue both in the lyrical – dramatic content intensity of the matter – colour as in the elevated " dépassements " of her actual and rigorously aesthetic message. Such a position on the part of a painter tied to the strictly artistic result, fully reassures us regarding the future of this art menaced, as it is, by the infinite, absurd " fashions " of consumism. Thank you for "art" and for "lovers".(Michel Tapié 1975)

The two Parisian exhibitions by the sculptor - painter, Anna Martinazzi, have been sufficient to classify her among today's most gifted young artists. I myself have presented and encouraged her, since her first exhibition. Claude Roger-Marx and Raymond Charmet have, in their turn, written certain comments which have convinced me that I am not wrong. Since then, Anna Martinazzi has generously worked, and we can say that the fruits have not belied the promise of the flowers. What characterizes the work of this painter is, first of all, the impression of an impetuous sincerity. The "touch" is candid, direct, mellow, without mannerism in the expression of an ardent sensitiveness. Her painting, both figurative and representative of imaginary frames of mind, exalt the values of a chromatic matter which bewitches and elevate the spirit. Painting that way is a gift one possesses, and cannot acquire. Anna Martinazzi’s works - either in portraits, in landscapes, or in fantastic interpretations of less figurative subjects – impress us also for their magistral execution. In the paintings of this very original Artist, under the apparences of spontaneity, we perceive  a communicative spirituality. (Maximilian Gauthier)

Anna Martinazzi possesses the relish as well as the fervour of colours. In her paintings there is an inexhaustible and brilliant movement: both in her characteristic portraits as in her imaginative compositions. In both one feels the sprint and enthusiasm of an instinctive painter. (Claude Roger – Marx)

 

With Anna Martinazzi painting arrives at an exact musical equivalence – a system of rhythms and pauses, resonances and silences – capable of transforming the painting in a symphonic composition. This is the first observation which should be made faced by the works of the young Italian artist who – in Paris – has obtained the consensus of the most discerning criticism, above all that of Michel Tapié. The vision of nature is accomplished thanks to the interior sight, sight which refuses the usual profile returned by the sensistic knowledge, perceiving the “autre” aspect, cryptic and yet present and obligatory. In a word, Martinazzi evocates the interior dynamics of an incessant  metamorphosis of nature in such a way that her canvases – in a whirling crucible- seem to condense mysterious falls of lymph and ‘humours’,  that same vital essence which penetrates every form and enliven them all... At this point, we could say that, in their own way, Anna Martinazzi’s paintings establish, metaphorically, signals of human condition, crystallizing the difficult and often harsh daily path of man; in short, inscribing, in a spatial dimension, her apprehensions, her fears, her anguish as well as her moments of serenity, her aspirations for an inner equilibrium, and her ascents towards superior worlds.  Thus, taken as a whole, this young painter’s discourse veils the eternal dialectics which marks the beat of human interiority.  Her merit is to have accomplished seriously the means fitting to reach such a result, and to have organically arranged them, till to define an univocally modulated message; means, those, which are founded, above all, on the evocative possibilities which are innate in the colour, when colour is ruled by the psychical energy.       In conclusion, I would say that, thanks to the expressive power of her imagery, Anna Martinazzi is a presence who rouses the most vigilant attention.   (Carlo Munari)
 

Falls of colours, the violence of blue, of flame-reds and of golden yellows: clots and layers of brush-strokes, dense with inform matters: these overlaps like sea vawes.  A sumptuous form of painting, to be classified in that of abstract expressionism, which enjoyed a partcularly vital period during the 50’s. This is, in synthesis, the painting of Anna Martinazzi, young artist from Brescia. Eruptions, columns of impetuous water, let loose  by the earth and which express the energies of freed elements: of fires and inflamed lava flows, apocalyptic flames which twine with vortical rhythm, within an atmosphere of extreme ‘surrealness’: these are the other aspects of a tormented and obsessive pictorial inspiration. Painting made up of images which impose themselves with dramatic evidence and which belong to an imaginative symbolism ( today somewhat in fashion) addresses to chaos, as the last perspective of an increasingly more uncertain present. The pictorical means, which Anna Martinazzi makes use of, might found be collocated in the circle of a technical expressionistic “revival”. It deals with a constant opposition of coloured volumes which seem to collide one another in a space destroyed by a moltitude of subverting elements.  Such contrasts have a much more explicit meaning in paintings rather than in sculptures, which are shaped with the immediateness of models, whose effects of light and shade are more simple and brief.  Anna Martinazzi gives an anguishing testimony of our time, which shows itself more and more adverse to dreams and to optimistic hopes. ( Giuseppe Marchiori )

Regarding this painter - regarding Anna Maria Martinazzi - one can say that starting from her first exhibition in Paris she stimulated the most famous critics: Maximilien Gauthier ( Les Nouvelles Littéraires), Claude Roger- Marx (Le Figaro Littéraire), Raymond Charmet (Les Arts); not to mention Michel Tapié, the promoter of the Informal ( and defined as the pope of modern art), André Parinaud, P. Sauvage, etc. etc.
Anna Maria Martinazzi is a spontaneous artist, possessing a luminous and extremely suggestive painting. Her works transmit life and warmth and - at times - something mysterious which seems to evoke ineffable dreams. (Maria Brandi)
 

Anna Martinazzi possesses the essential virtues which characterize a real artist. She is instinctive "pulsion " in its own right. I do not only admire in her works that letting loose of intense emotions, making for that concordant vibrating with the vortex of sensations which submerge her work, or else the power of the colours used and the authority with which she paints ( and this gift of making us participate in this " festivity" of an intense sensuality). Above all - and behind the wave of this celebration - I find the repressed restlessness which transpires, the anguish and the questions without answer which belong to our age uprooted, as it is, from the most simple truth, this age which wonders in the terrible "heavens" of discomfort. I am sensitive, moreover, to this mastery which her art reveals, to this lucidity which dominates her way of seeing and which always permits her equilibrium, harmony in the antagonisms and beauty of both forms and colours.
This ability of letting loose essential rythms, structures from the womb of chaos, that of the disciplining of the wild creative force which springs out from her brushes. This, perhaps, is the essential thing of her gesture. This is what ties Anna Martinazzi to the higher levels of the expressionism of today. (André Parinaud)

 

ANNA MARTINAZZI : THE MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD

From Italy, place from which the greatest production of the world paintings has been flowing for eight centuries, comes to us a young astonishing artist who lets flowing on her canvases some bright presents flourishing into a transcendent inspiration.  The modern figurative and abstract trends, with there vivid contradictions, brazier of today’s art, meet in her paintings and there explode in a very singular volcano. With a solid ability as a drawer. Already known in Italy, Anna Martinazzi has a production of  portraitist and landscape painter that she has presented here in Paris.  Recently, she had an exhibition in Beyrouth presented by Michel Tapié.  This famous Parisian critic of avant-garde has oriented her towards abstract painting, and she has dedicated herself to it with strong willingness.  She has found  in it the plastic resources capable to express her deep musical sentiments.  The art of colours as well as the one of sounds brings abstract resonances and she, herself, declares: “ I practice music withy my brushes”.  A landscape is transformed into chromatic rhythms of a charming bravery by Anna Martinazzi.  The wide plains of the countryside, the nostalgic backgrounds are transformed into long traits of stout reds, of thick blue, mingled with lightening yellows.  The stones, the tress are nothing but black masses like anguish cries, while the sky, the clouds, those wonderful ones celebrated by the poet Baudelaire, sing hymn to the subtle, restless fugue of time and of universe, both in tender shadows of reds turning rose and gold, and in passionate contrasts of bright clouds shining like silver, dark like hell, light blue like Paradise.  Sometimes under the brush of Ann Martinazzi the vision of an atemporal world rises, anterior to all the human history. Hallucinatory forms of unreal monsters appear . To our eyes they evoke the primitive efforts of life in the chaos of the Universe, the instinctive energies of the existence. Often the artist develops the pure emotions with passion, indefinite, of a rare intensity that makes her heart vibrate. Explosions of large blue strokes clear away imperiously the space of the canvas like a hurricane. We see also tornados of madder and of carmine reds that unroll in furious waves, admixtures of sulphurous yellow and mephitic green, running towards ineffable, mysterious celebrations. This beautiful outbreak characterizes perfectly the tumultuous aspirations, the radical restlessness of our century upset by a terrible crisis of growth. We admire that Ann Martinazzi has known how to confer a superior harmony to these dramatic shakes of the contemporary world . She comes there building powerful and wide accords thanks to which all dissonances are balanced like a conductor can do. This young painter is aware that the supreme goal of art is to purify the wild and invincible power of life, expressing, glorifying it. (Raymond Charmet)

At the Duncan gallery, Anna Martinazzi has presented some very suggestive and almost informal works, rich in very rhythmical and comunicative values. We have noticed the beauty of the skies, above some sunsets created thanks to a palette full of colours.  The resolute and generous brush is already well mastered by this young artist, whose success is increasing day after day. ( Bernard Gauthron)