Mario Magherini was born in Rufina, near Florence in 1947. In the 1970s he moved to Pontassieve where he currently lives.

He began to paint and draw at any early age and attended art school to continue his artistic training.

He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibits over his 30 year career and his paintings can be found in both public and private collections around the world.

Pier Francesco Listri

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

  -  Follonica, Via Roma - Casello Idraulico     [22 - 28 July 2013]

  -  Marina di Grosseto, via Piave, 6      [4 - 11 August 2013]

  -  Castiglione della Pescaia, via Vittorio Veneto - Ex Municipio     [19 - 25 August 2013]

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

  1989  -  Villa Poggio Reale, Rufina, Italy

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

  2012  -  Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy     [16 - 22 July 2012]

  2012  -  Marina Di Grosseto, Italy     [8 - 15 August 2012]

  2012  -  Lido di Camaiore, Italy     [24 April - 2 May 2012]

  2011  -  Follonica, Italy

  2011  -  Marina di Grosseto, Italy

  2009  -  Beléme, Brasil

  2007  -  Palazzo Panciatichi, Florence, Italy

  1993  -  Center for Italian-Australian Gold Coaster, Burleigh, Australia

  1992  -  Heseler Gallery, Munich, Germany

  1990  -  Incisa Valdarno, Italy

Press:

– La Nazione Newspaper

– Eco d’arte Magazine

– Educations, Mugello Newspaper

– Il Galletto

– Il corriere di Maremma Newspaper

– Lo spicciolo Magazine

– Toscana TV

The Tuscanism of a Master Between Two Rivers - Pier Francesco Listri, art critic, 2009

Mario Magherini is a painter of Tuscan subjects that exude ‘tuscanism’.

Today he is the prime of his life; esteemed for a career that spans thirty years, well documented by many successful exhibitions both in Europe and abroad. Self-taught following the traditions of the great Tuscan masters and movements, and especially by the 18th century landscape painters the Macchiaioli, the artist is above all the master of his own landscape , even if painting an enchanting still life with flowers.

The artist, a Valdisieve native, lives in the charming small town of Pontassieve where the Arno and the Sieve rivers meet. These two rivers give life to the serene beauty of the undulating hills dotted with olive trees and grapevines, the centuries-old products (olive oil and wine) of this fertile land. It is both quite near yet quite distinct from Florence, both in industry and craftsmanship, but with whom it shares a long history.

The paintings of this artist are nearly always devoid of human figures. Houses and trees are the focal points here, because here nature and history have lived peacefully side by side for millenium.

Defining tuscanism, that it to say the style and nature combination of the artist which he then transforms into pictorial transfiguration, is not an easy task. Speaking simply, one could say that tuscanism is the ‘poetry of the essentials’; that is to say the harmony of proportions in space (the most well know artist of such representation being the 12th century Florentine painter Giotto), a dry realism that rejects every attempt at showy unnecessary elements, and lastly the search for a beauty that is both balanced and exact.

Magherini’s radiant landscapes respond to and express all this, and they offer something more. They are also magical transformations that, in the reality represented on canvas, recreate charm and solemness of the mundane. They are, therefore, works of poetry which compete with the liquid light that is thoughtfully added to these painted scenes by a masterful colorist.

Let’s take a closer look at the artist’s color palette.

We have spoken about light. This is the key element in Magherini’s painting: light that bathes every canvas. However, this light is not confined to that of the morning or of the evening sun, rather it is that which is where time is suspended in poetic stillness, and which offer up unforgettable images to the observer. This light is unique in that in that it is largely built up on few colors; mainly yellow and orange, which combine to bath the canvas in color and create the magic that transforms ordinary into extraordinary.

But on just what does this unique luminosity rest?

The theme of Tuscan scenery has been touched upon. However, the range of subjects is not limited to just the countryside, farmhouses, trees and hills that dot the fertile valleys. It also encompases the wild untouched stretches of white sandy beach along the Tuscan coast of Maremma that Magherini adores and often paints. The seascapes of this artist are painted upon long rectangular canvases in the Macchiaiola style of Fattori and Borrani and of dense dark hues, bearing similar comparison with another Tuscan artist from Viareggio, the 19th century painter Mario Marcucci.

These images, part of the artist’s infinite repertoire, contain glimpses of the Renaissance city of Florence represented by Brunelleschi’s dome atop the looming 14th century cathedral, bathed in ever-present magical light.

It is the unrepeatable uniqueness of the Tuscan countryside that has fascinated the artist for decades. He interprets and analyzes these views from a thousand different depths and perspectives.

He carefully alters the natural beauty of the Tuscan countryside which has been for centuries under the attentive care of generations of inhabitants. Space is meticulously divided among the grassy fields, the ordered rows of trees, and the arrangement of the farmhouses on the hills. Together these elements create a harmonious vision which is immediately transformed into a calming and gratifying image before our eyes. This is what the artist represents and therefore what he paints.

Looking at his paintings two particular elements catch the eye: the profusion of flowers and the elegant pointed blackness of the majestic cypress trees. This last element, which only in Tuscany are not the type of trees typically seen around cemeteries, seem not to be planted haphazardly. Here they serve as property dividers; they are the august guardians of a long dirt road leading to a stately villa, like the lone skyscraper on a knoll. Their long slender profile serving as the hands of a compass dividing the landscape into geometrical shapes. This is how Magherini envisions the Tuscan scenery.

The artist, who at times has the grace of a miniaturist, often places a thick and overflowing band of flowers in the foreground of his landscapes; it is his way of explaining to the viewer’s eye the distance between the flowers in the foreground and the horizon in the background. The variety of luscious flowers are presented by a lover of nature, bringing to mind the floral carpet under the feet of Botticelli’s Primavera, and of themselves reflect the artist’s unique chromatic palette, especially in the faces of the sunflowers.

For all these particularities Mario Magherini represents is the bearer of Tuscanism. His delightful paintings are born of an innocent simplicity which united with a faithful fusion of elements is the mythical key to the land which has illuminated the canvases of great artists for more than two thousand years.

The Color of Light - Luciano Martelli, art critic, 2009

The land and seascape paintings of the artist Mario Magherini have been slowly gaining critical attention for the unusual way in which viewers are drawn to them. The eye is captured by the small details before the view widens to the painting in its entirety. These tiny particulars are what catch the eye and transmit a sensation of peacefulness and calm over the viewer.

In today’s modern world of strong contrasts and immoderate consumptionism, Mario Magherini slows this process and fills his rural landscapes with plants and flowers laden with color and loving detail which beg the eye to linger. It is a one man attempt at preserving a mode of observation that is nearly extinct while guiding the viewer to memorize the minute details with little effort.

No parallels can be made between the artist and other similar schools. The artist is independent in his style which has been tried before by others with mixed success. He interprets his impressions of and feelings for Tuscany as a Tuscan with great respect and love for his homeland. His landscapes are devoid of humans but abundant in signs that they exist in the farmhouses that have been jealously guarded for centuries by their inhabitants. The tree is the majestic and severe cypress, a symbol of confines; of the rural boundaries between properties and also of the confines of life.

The sun illuminates but never really shows its face, but like a well oiled machine reassures that with a warm sunset comes the promise of a new sunrise.