Livio Orazio Valentini , livre ebook

Livio Orazio Valentini
Livio Orazio Valentini

An Artist s Spiritual Odyssey
Robert E. Alexander and John A. Elliott
With Erika Pauli Bizzarri

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
Publication is made possible in part by the generous support of Security Federal Bank .
2018 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
Manufactured in China
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-898-2 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-899-9 (ebook)
Front cover illustration: La Palombella , 1980, mixed media on canvas, collection of Valentini family
To
L ESLIE , L ARA AND FAMILY , and R OB AND FAMILY

In memory of
H ERSCHELL AND S AVILLA E LLIOTT
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction
Chapter One
Livio s Early Life
Chapter Two
Ricordi -Livio s Memoir
Chapter Three
Livio s Life as Seen by Others
Chapter Four
Periods of Valentini s Art
Chapter Five
Livio and Aiken
Chapter Six
The Story of Galassia
Chapter Seven
The Mostra and the Monuments of Orvieto
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
In May 2003, Maestro Livio Orazio Valentini arrived at the Etherredge Center on the campus of the University of South Carolina Aiken (USCA) to unveil the painting Galassia , his galaxy for the new millennium. This highly original composition was the culminating achievement of a six-year relationship between Aiken and Orvieto, a hilltop town in the heart of Umbria where Valentini had lived since he was two years old. Galassia was the capstone of the Maestro s painting career and a magnificent summary of his personal philosophy.

Livio Orazio Valentini with Galassia in the Etherredge Center Gallery. Photograph by Scott Webster.
This book will serve as a memorial to Livio who passed away in July of 2008 at the age of eighty-seven. We will recount the Maestro s spiritual odyssey beginning with his confinement as a prisoner of war at Buchenwald and including the role he and his wife Flora played in founding the Istituto d Arte in Orvieto. Our volume will also trace the course of Livio s life as an artist, from his early education to his time in Rome, the various periods in his art, his involvement in Aiken, and his subsequent career until his death. In his breathtaking imagery, Livio revealed his native heritage: a synthesis of Etruscan, medieval and Renaissance art, voiced in a post-modern style. Livio often spoke about the human condition through the metaphor of a caged bird. This gentle man taught all of us how compassion could overcome oppression, how art could bring cleansing, and hope could conquer fear. In the shadow of 9/11, Livio wrote that he hoped Galassia would give us the chance to get in touch with the eternity in our deepest selves. May those who read our words come to appreciate our friend Livio, who suffered through war and returned to strive for peace. For USC Aiken and the citizens of our city, we remember Livio as our beloved friend, our Maestro for the millennium.

City of Orvieto, Italy. Photograph by Michael St. John.
Livio s life and art were about his efforts to find freedom. The person who first suggested this explanation was Valeriano Venturi, a lawyer and Livio s friend. In an effort to understand Orvieto, he told us one had to go back to the thirteenth century when the society of the city and surrounding region was based on a lord and serf relationship. He traced the history through successive iterations of closed societies to the present. Throughout the centuries it continued to be a highly structured society and people were defined by their heritage and the circumstances of their birth. From Venturi s point of view, the ruling class of Orvieto was not open to outsiders rewriting their past to create a new future. Someone like Livio, who came from the small town of San Venanzo at the age of two, would always be seen as an outsider by the age-old Orvieto aristocracy. 1
Orvieto, especially the old city on the hill, is virtually a museum housing centuries-old works by some of Italy s most famous artists. The daily experiences of the inhabitants of the town, rubbing shoulders with some marvelous examples of art ranging from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century on every street corner, could be overwhelming to a young struggling artist, creating angst for the psyche and soul. As one of Livio s younger colleagues explained, We grew up running around invaluable sculptures, hanging off them, using them to play hide and seek. They had no transformative value to us because they were everywhere. 2
In addition, Livio lived through the horrific experience of the war and the concentration camp. Only those who can empathize with such degradation and horror can understand the impact it had on Livio s life. To all who knew Livio and his art, it is clear that these wartime memories were central to informing his passion for artistic self-expression and his quest for freedom. If one were to attempt to visually depict Livio s search for freedom, the best possible scenario might be a series of ever expanding ellipses growing from a single point that represents Orvieto. Each ellipse might portray a period in his art or some significant time in his life. The beginning of each would emanate from Orvieto and return as if drawn by gravity to the same point, always anticipating a new effort toward finding a sense of freedom. The ellipses represent Livio s attempts to escape the restraints of Orvieto or to cast off his memories or even his family in order to achieve his goal. In each ellipse he drives himself into a greater expanding orbit, breaking some of the traditions binding him to the past only to reach a point where his energy and desire are consumed and he thus returns to his origin, Orvieto. His ultimate goal is to break completely free and find that radical sense of freedom; to break the gravitational pull: of Orvieto, the traditions of art, the memories of war, and the controlling sense of family ties. There are those like Hannah Arendt, the renowned twentieth-century political theorist and German-Jewish exile who spent most of her American academic career at the University of Chicago, who believe the struggle between the desire for radical freedom and obedience to responsibility is part of the human condition and part of everyone s journey. 3

Ellipses of Livio s art and career. Graphic by Michael Fowler.
To appreciate Livio s career one must understand that he delved into each work of art and infused the colors with his passion, endowing each work with a power only possible for one who sees the world in a special way. For Livio the struggle took on epic proportions and ruled his life, his art, and his daily existence.
Upon meeting Livio on campus, we became immersed in his art and his personality, particularly the spiritual message it conveyed: a plea of anguish that cried out for all of humanity to understand and embrace freedom as an essential element of what it means to be human. In our initial and many subsequent conversations, we found him to be a man with great sensitivity and vision. Because of his openness and clarity about his life-long pursuit of freedom, the temptation was to put him on a pedestal rather than think of him in mere human terms.
Years later and after his death, we still see these qualities in his life and his art but we have discovered not a saint but a man who had his foibles and weaknesses. One is reminded of the truism that people s strengths are also their weaknesses. Livio was a great artist who used his art to cry out against the injustices of the world and the inhumanity manifested in our day-to-day lives. In addition to his role as artist he was a father, grandfather, husband, teacher, friend, and citizen of the world. Livio constantly pursued beauty and freedom in whatever form he found it and color more than shape became his pathway in his search. He fulfilled his role as artist better than any of his other roles.
In addition to the illustrations in this book, we are providing a comprehensive offering of Livio s ceramics, paintings, and sculptures in the special USCA supplemental website valentini.usca.edu . Through the courtesy of the Valentini family, we are also able to provide an exhaustive selection of historic photographs of his family and friends. Included on this website is Alexander s final interview with Livio Valentini as well as our video entitled Livio Orazio Valentini: A Maestro for the Millennium .
Acknowledgments
We deeply appreciate all of the support, encouragement, and especially the endorsement this project has received from the Valentini family. Flora, Cristiana, Silvia, and Francesca have been very generous with their time and efforts to ensure that we have had access to the materials and information needed for us to tell Livio s story. Silvia in particular has gone above and beyond in getting us anything we have requested. To all of the family we express our deepest appreciation.
Our dear friend Erika Pauli Bizzarri has collaborated with us throughout the development of this book. Erika has been our chief translator as she was for Livio. She tirelessly served as our chief researcher in Italy and significantly contributed to the editing of the manuscript. In addition, Erika has been instrumental in orchestrating the photography taken throughout Italy. Her sons, Claudio Bizzarri, an archaeologist who specializes in the Etruscan period, and Lamberto Bizzarri, an IT specialist, contributed much to our understanding of the heritage of Orvieto.
The book would not have been possible were it not for George Custodi. His Italian roots and chance meeting with Livio became the hinge pin of this entire project. Had he not sought to make up his Rotary meeting, the Orvieto-Aiken con