traveling

Ferocious tigers, lions, leopards and foxes populate the visionary paintings of Antonio Ligabue (1899-1965). Works on display in the Orangerie of the Reggia di Monza, where a retrospective curated by Sandro Parmiggiani is set up, which collects 90 pieces. A talented, self-taught, naive, misunderstood and sometimes derided painter, Ligabue struggled to succeed, finally arriving in 1961 with the Roman exhibition at the La Barcaccia gallery which brought him to the attention of the national scene. Born in Switzerland, he was soon entrusted by his mother to a Swiss-German couple; expelled in 1919, he settled in Gualtieri where he found shelter in the local hospice. On the banks of the Po he began to paint: an activity carried out incessantly, alternating with periods of humble and tiring work and internment in a mental hospital. In the exhibition the paintings, drawings, sculptures and engravings are arranged from the 1920s to 1962, in a chronological path that presents the most frequent themes in his productions. Wild and domestic animals, scenes of peasant life, Swiss landscapes, glimpses of the Po Valley and self-portraits that constantly return, elaborated with a particular style, bright and contrasting colors, evident contours and a great expressive charge. A unique style, which blends art and life, and which in the language and forms of painting urgently translates the dramas of abandonment and madness, suffering, misery and failures.

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