Galleria d’Arte di Giacomo Pietoso [ENG]

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The Notebook - Acrylic on canvas, 2024

The title of the work "The Notebook” might remind you of the novel by Nicholas Sparks or the film based on it. The artist draws inspiration from a scene in the film to paint a picture entirely dominated by shades of blue from the sky down to lake water reaching to the lower border.
The distinction between the two elements is achieved through the addition of quick, light touches of green, yellow, and violet, suggesting water lilies and lake plants. Other long, delicate brushstrokes in dark blue create the semi-transparent image of a tree on the left edge of the work. Once again, blue outlines branches and trunks along the centre of the canvas, marking the horizon between sky and lake.
The scene evokes one of the film's iconic moments, where the two lovers take a boat ride on the lake. Silence and nature surround them in a moment that is both beautiful and a visual metaphor for the purity of their love. It is perhaps this connection between nature and emotion, so similar to his own poetic vision, that led the artist to pay tribute to this tender story.

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Vase with Wild Flowers - Acrylic on linen, 2024

The painting depicts a vase of flowers placed on a table.
Along the lower edge, is the white tabletop, rendered with discontinuous brushstrokes. At its centre stands the vase, also in white, so that its irregular cone shape seems to emerge from the table. Thin, undulating green brushstrokes branch out from the vase, representing the flower stems. On these stems are multicolored spots—yellow, bright blue, white, purple, red, and indigo blue—scattered freely across the central area of the work, like fireworks. These vivid colours are balanced by the pastel tones of the terracotta background, with soft shades ranging from pale pink to peach.
Contact with nature is a crucial aspect of Giacomo Pietoso's work. The scent of flowers, their swaying in the wind: everything is experienced by the painter with an intensity that captures the beauty of what is close to us. The chromatic energy of his paintings is not so much a faithful representation of reality as an expression of an inner joy of living that he wishes to share with the spectator.

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Pulcinella on the Swing- Acrylic on canvas, 2021

In the centre of a background of abstract circular and spiral motifs in yellow and blue—reminiscent of a gilded Baroque backdrop—there is a figure rendered with a few bold strokes in white which allow us to identify him at a glance.
Yes, the long, downward-curved cap is indeed that of Pulcinella, the famous masked figure from the commedia dell'arte.
He is depicted from behind, seated on a black swing rendered in a similarly stylized manner. The figure grips the ropes of the swing, that reach the top edge of the canvas.
The image is touching because it shows an atypical Pulcinella. Usually whimsical and boisterous, here he is pictured in a rare moment of peace, with the swing holding him suspended rather than swaying.
The artist's tribute to this character is due not only to the fact that Pucinella comes from Acerra, Giacomo Pietoso’s home town but also, for him, Pulcinella's virtue lies in his ability to laugh in the face of adversity — a figure that represents the poorer classes, capable of overcoming hardship through freedom and humour.

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The Crazy Guitar - Acrylic on canvas, 2019

Almost the entire painting is filled with stylized, overlapping silhouettes resembling the soundbox of a guitar. They are drawn with bold, thick lines, ranging from blue at the bottom to red and white at the top, with hues blending and overlapping. Each outline is created with a single continuous stroke, as if the brush never leaves the canvas. Other vertical brushstrokes evoke the instrument's fretboard. The overlapping shapes give the impression of a guitar in motion, caught in different moments of agitated playing. Enhancing this effect is the red background and a few serpentine yellow lines that branch out from the silhouettes and extend towards the right edge of the painting. They seem to convey the liveliness of the music or the frenetic movement of the player's fingers.
Of all the paintings, it is perhaps in this one that one of Giacomo Pietoso's distinctive traits emerges most clearly: a sense of restlessness that is difficult to contain and spills onto the canvas through an immediate and spontaneous technique.

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The Tree of Life - Acrylic on canvas, 2020

A tree stands out against an almost entirely abstract background, composed of thick, dense strokes of color. These range from red, brown, and ochre mainly towards the lower edge, suggesting the earth.  In the upper part, blue, green, and light blue depict the sky. The tones are not clearly separated between the two areas, resulting in traces of red and ochre at the top and green in the lower portion.
In the centre foreground of the picture, the trunk of the tree rises with vertical strokes in sepia brown. At the top, the brushstrokes become more delicate, creating a fine, dense arabesque of branches that extends to the top and side edges of the painting.
This is the Tree of Life, an archetypal symbol found in Celtic cults, medieval church bas-reliefs, and Klimt's paintings. The tree, which changes with the flow of the seasons while remaining alive and firmly rooted for centuries, is a metaphor for an eternity made possible by perpetual renewal.

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Acerra Cathedral - Acrylic on canvas, 2023

Acerra is the painter's hometown and here is a glimpse of the cathedral and the piazza in front of it.
The lower half of the painting is dominated by the plane of the piazza, rendered abstractly as an empty blue ground with some  white brushstrokes. At the distant end the cathedral occupies the centre of the upper half of the canvas. It is depicted succinctly through its two main architectural elements: the columned portico, in grey and white, with dark blue intervals between the columns, and above it, the large dome. To the left of the cathedral, dark patches create undefined profiles of shapes that may be buildings. On the right, in yellow, is the wall of a building receding towards the cathedral, interrupted by the green and brown tones of a tree. The entire scene emerges from nervous, textured and discontinuous brushstrokes. The extensive use of light blue and blue in the various elements gives the work a sense of spiritual calm and elevation, further suggested by the dome.
Painted in light blue with an exaggerated oblong bell shape, the dome appears to project towards the sky, almost as if hovering above the church itself.

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The Colours of Coffee - Acrylic on canvas 2022

Coffee is much more than just a drink, don’t you think? Even Giacomo Pietoso says: "It's not that I just like coffee. Before even the coffee itself, what I like is the thought of it."
In this painting, the artist has visually condensed the sensations that arise while sipping an espresso.
The result is an abstract composition, with its only connection to reality located in the upper left quarter, where there is an outline view from above, of a red-orange cup with vibrant rim, filled with black coffee. The whole composition is created with quick, short, thick brushstrokes that form irregular patches of color. The red-orange of the cup is joined by yellow, blue, white, green, and brown, which blend to create a riot of colours and movement.
The chaotic arrangement of the composition effectively conveys the awakening of the senses as the delicious smell of coffee spreads. Here, the colours become the visual equivalent of the aroma. Additionally, the choice of thick, textured brushstrokes gives the painting a remarkable three-dimensionality, which could be associated with the richness of a good espresso!

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The Infinite - Acrylic on linen, 2023

The painting presents a vast seascape visually divided into two parts. In the upper section, the sky is depicted, filled with soft, billowy clouds rendered in white with delicate touches of pink. It could be dawn or dusk. Occasionally, a patch of light blue breaks through the clouds. The lower half of the scene features a calm sea, where the artist uses dashes of blue, white, and light blue, along with some undulating brushstrokes, to convey the movement of the water. Among the waves, subtle hints of pink reflect the light above. Several small boats are scattered across the water, depicted with quick black strokes, like silhouettes, while to the spectator's right, is a stretch of coastline also in black.
The division between sky and sea is not sharply defined: the two elements merge in the center, with clouds blending into the waves and vice versa.Where sky and sea meet, time seems suspended. One can almost feel the sea breeze: perhaps it was this air, carrying the lightness of the sky and the saltiness of the sea, that inspired the artist.

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Sunflowers - Acrylic on canvas, 2023

Against a vibrant green background, three sunflowers are displayed from above, looking down on them, seeing only the petals and stamens resembling small explosions of yellow on the canvas.
They are arranged in such a way that the reddish-brown stamen of each flower stands out as a corner of a triangle. Relative to the spectator, one flower is in the lower right quarter of the canvas, one at middle height in the left half and one slightly larger than the others fills the upper right quarter.
The brushwork is thick and expressive: the petals are not realistically detailed but conveyed with vigorous strokes that impart a bushy vibrancy  to the images.
The sunflower is known for following the sun through its diurnal journey. In the artist's vision, this characteristic symbolizes an invitation to seize the beauty that life offers each moment. To be as tenacious as the sunflower, which never stops turning its gaze toward the light.

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Introduction

Giacomo Pietoso's journey as an artist revolves on a pivotal moment that, for many, might have been a point of no return — the loss of his sight in 2008, following a serious accident.
This distressing event marked the beginning of a path that changed his perception of the world. Pietoso began to concentrate on the other pleasures that he sensed in his surroundings, from the wind caressing his skin, to the aroma of coffee, to the liveliness of public squares. This shift in perspective inevitably brought him closer to art, first through poetry and writing, and then, in 2019, to painting.
His works have reached galleries across the world and garnered prestigious recognition, including an artistic dossier curated by Vittorio Sgarbi.
His technique embodies the art movement he is credited with founding, called "Sensazionismo."
It is a form of spontaneous artistic expression that doesn’t rely on predefined frameworks but rather draws directly from sensations invoked by the surrounding reality. The painter uses such sensory perceptions to reflect his emotions and inner thoughts with bold, rapid, energetic, textured brushstrokes that express the artist's energy and passion on the canvas.