The Magic of  Figurative

 by Lidia Panzeri

This is the first important occasion to revisit in its entirety the work of  Leonardo Beccegato, Venetian scientist by profession and driven to be an artist  by passion. In fact, this exhibition offers an almost complete retrospective showing of more than forty works covering the last twelve years. These works reveal his complex artistic itinerary, rich with influences ranging from magical realism to the metaphysical, in harmony with the art of Sironi and at the same time heir to the tradition of the vedutistica veneziana. All his opere have a very precise and recognizable style, which predominately favors, with rare exceptions, the use of warm burnished tones, revitalized with strokes of white or tenuous shades of gray. His is a choice of figurative art in which he as the artist is in absolute command of the figures whether they be alone, in couples or in groups. One sees his mastery in Insieme, (1994), in the figures of the man and women counter-positioned, but what we remember most is the splendor of  her hair which seems transformed into a veil; or in the divergent gaze of the couple in Senza titolo, that appears to enclose them in a magical embrace of conversation.

Beccegato uses a wide variety of themes in his works that reflect a synthesis of then plurality his formation: scientific, philosophical, his indubitable sense of religion, striking affinity with landscape, and extraordinary ability to interpret the soul of woman with all of its various nuances.

Even though he is self-taught, Beccegato is well learned artist who conceives of a painting as a space reserved for in depth reflections. Filosofica converszione, (1988), one of his first works, depicts a complex composition of simulacra immersed in silence. This theme returns in his La tentazione del filosofo 1, a portrait inspired by Benedetto Croce. His latest expression of this momentary synthesis is La tentazione del filosofo 2 (1997), where the enigmatic and reclining male figure, the artist himself admits, refers to the methaphisical of De Chirico.

The bravura of Beccegato comes out even when he undertakes painting in the context of the Venetian iconographic tradition. Reviving the renaissance topos of the Concertino, an occasion for convivial encounters between noble spirits, he mutates the surroundings which are no longer of the idealized countryside of the sixteenth century. But of a campo in Venice, one of its livliest: Santa Margherita, with buildings that serve as theatrical backgrounds. Even in this case, we are faced with ecstatic figures immersed their in thoughts: in temporal suspension; underlined by prevalent burnished tones.

This type of dialogue is so profound that it needs no words to be expressed. It represents another constant in the work of Beccegato: the emphasis on an atmosphere of waiting, more than on the actual dénouement of the enigma, a metaphor for life, the quintessence of the feminine soul in its attitude, of trusting abandonment. This is the focal point out of which the art of Beccegato comes. Women are portrayed in a variety of attitudes, in a wide range of situations which denote his extraordinary psychological sensibility towards them. She may be a nymph, a mythological figure having sinuos contours that are barely hinted at on a background dilated into an infinite space, as in Concertino (1995), or she may assume the provocative corporalithy of Susanna e i vecchioni (1996), or she may be courtesan in the ambiguous atmosphere of the Tentazione (1997), (this subject also alludes to a classical theme, seen especially in the half bust figure which looks out of the window). She is surprised by her narcisistic complacency reflected in the mirror in the Ragazza alla specchio (1992) of found melancholic and abandoned, as in L’attesa (1991). Often nude, but always modest, reticent to reveal herself; her most intimate nature remains elusive. The atmosphere of this feminine ideal becomes hazy with its tones dulled in the interior of the early twentieth century salon of the bourgeois, Il riposo delle modelle (1997). This romantic expression, also seen in his image of the train station, is attractive with is plume of smoke steaming from the locomotive (another rreference to De Chirico?) in Giugno 1997, where the protagonist is portrayed in a very content state of  being, perhaps due to a pleasurable encounter fait accomplit or perhaps due to the anticipation provoked by an imminent appointment.

Beccegato takes religious themes and bring them to life in a very unreal campo Santa Margherita in Peccato originale (1990), and in Susanna e I vecchioni (1996). He transforms the square into a mythical place where distant events take place in front of very dramatic background. But he does not lose sight of its liveliness and enriches these biblical themes with signs of life such as the waterfall in Peccato originale. He also understands religion as Pietà, in its literal interpretation of Christ who has abandoned his body and who here a disfigured or rather obliterated face, or perhaps this expression is just an act of solidarity towards I derelitti, with their strongly realistic faces.

Beccegato is nevertheless, a man of science: his is certainly an ancient sky, perhaps even that millenary night of the Magi, but his way of observing it his point of view is through the lens of a scientist, Gli astronomi exemplify this, case and point. L’astronomia, is also the title of a work from 1994, where the reference to instruments used in human work is explicit.

His allowing himself to use of the warm brown tones of Sironi in the depiction of landscapes of peripheral areas is a tribute to his technical formation. In the urban reality of Porto Marghera he correctly indicates this place as integral and integrated part of Venice.

And yet his being Venetian makes Beccegato the natural heir to landscape tradition in which everything relies upon light, with that certain mutation of colors, that ignites liquid reflections at sunset (reference to the title of one of his paintings from 1989), or darkens with the approach of a storm; where tones gradually diminish, dulled by a hazy sunrise or clouds over with metaphysical shade as in Presagio sulla città from 1986. They know how to recover, in the end, even the splendor of the blue sky that reflects on a limpid sea in Marina, 1985. The painting with which made his artistic debut.