Review written by GIOVANNI CARANDENTE


Exhibition of 1961 at Galleria l’88 – Via Margutta, Rome (Italy)


The dynamic school of Spoleto feeds the burning fire with fresh and young shoots. They in turn naturally act as rascals to show not only their immature status but also the juvenile happiness of their souls. Spoleto, for many different spiritual aspects a center of civilization, meeting point of tradition and new theories, nourishes its cultural resources from the very same source of its origin. It is the case of the artist Bronchi, already active since a few years but not known to the public and now ready to manifest his art through the display of paintings that show a well developed profile and a constructed motif. He adds to the many artists from Spoleto already known like Leoncillo, Raspi and De Gregorio or less known like Marignoli and Toscano that in past times proved their artistry.
The painting by Bronchi especially with the latest production follows the path indicated by Raspi: a deep and persistent balance between the world of reality and the autonomy of forms; between a subdued echo of visionary anxiety and a clear examination of unreal situations. As to the colour structure, a fluid paralled between matter and image, with the objective to avoid the first to overshadow the second.
After an esitating path full of instinctive mix of matter and colour, and after a tribute to the vague possibility of a formal spectrum lost in space and broken in depth by flashes of light-colour; now Bronchi creates its painting following a more rational necessity. Space, crossed by filaments, light transparent objects and far sources of light, all aspects tipycal of the italian school that has in Afro its main interpreter and master, appears in these last paintings carefully delved into and elaborated. Flat areas of matter are part of the picture, as of to reduce the unlimited sense of the horizon. Fast colour flashes make the whole picture alive, creating pauses and contributing to the final assembly of the framework.
Bronchi, who does not have behind him the post-cubism influence as in the case of Raspi, finds a solution for this construcion problem which is very simple. He too alternates real knowledge and a more internal view of the world, portrayed as a result of a new equation. Reality is one but is made of many different ones that are born, live and die in one another. So the reality of these paintings by Bronchi have their roots not so much in the painful search for emotions, but in the most independent formal structure. Simple, ready to be expanded but always under control.
The control of the images is the most important gift of this young artist; on one side he is able to absorb from the protective and stimulating environment around him cultural inputs of the highest level both for modernity and direction; on the other side he is able to be, in this first and immature approach to the position of a dedicated artist, very creative indeed. His very human attitude, rich in ingeniousity and ambitions, already indicates from this first exposure a very successful season.