In these works by Paolo Petrucci – a Roman painter and TV director gifted with unusual sobriety and subtlety – the inspirations are quite clear.
The country, the coast, the sea and the houses of Paolo Petrucci, in the essentiality of their composition – on the border with abstraction – and in the choice of shades – with the predominance of greys, blues and greens – display a choice of solitude and silence, of an intimate search of nature that reaches, if not a real religious spirit, the borders of metaphysics.
Mediterranean landscapes – but, is it correct to call these paintings “landscapes”, as far as they are from the common idea of “postcard”? – a tree, a house, the horizon on the sea, the ruggedness of the promontory, of the mountains, reduced to essentiality – the spatula work is intense, solid, and the color coagulates where the impression is stronger – they suggest a quest for inner peace, clearness, detachment, melancholy.
Several of these works would have been liked by Mario Mafai, a master of ‘900, still not praised enough. It is not a coincidence that Mario Mafai was a Roman, just like the young Paolo Petrucci.
Gino Montesanto
May 23, 1979