The inclusion of this artwork in the museum’s collection coincided with the organisation of an exhibition in Grottammare during the summer of 1999, dedicated to honouring the singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André (Genoa, 1940 - Milan, 1999), who passed away on January 11 of that same year. The watercolour draws its inspiration from one of the most renowned Italian songs of the 20th century, “La guerra di Piero” (Piero’s War), composed in 1964 by De André in collaboration with Vittorio Centanaro for the music. Included in the first album released by the singer-songwriter (“Tutto Fabrizio De André”, 1966), the song is an anti-militarist anthem in which some of the hallmark traits of the great Genoese author emerge exemplarily, such as intellectual rigour, the unmistakable voice and the very high quality of the lyrics.
The connection of the image with the song is based on the most essential and memorable verses of the lyrics, included in its opening and closing stanza. It does so in such a direct manner that, even without knowing its title, the association is immediate. The thematic core of the song’s lyrics is based on the instinctive hesitation of the soldier Piero when faced with the unnatural prospect of shooting an unknown individual, an “enemy” solely because he wears a different military uniform. This realisation so elementary is the last of his life, as the ruthless dictates of self-preservation and “duty” determine that he is struck to death, ending up “buried in a field of wheat”, amidst “a thousand red poppies”.
This song has been condensed into the concise and straightforward image we’re discussing by one of Italy’s most esteemed illustrators, Franco Matticchio (Varese, 1957), who created it in the same year he received one of his most prestigious professional recognitions – the commission to design a cover for “The New Yorker” (“The Big Bag”, December 13, 1999). Inspired by artists like René Magritte, Edward Hopper and Roland Topor, Matticchio’s creative universe is marked by the coexistence of fantastical and real elements, inversions between the human and animal worlds, whimsical decontextualizations, absurd situations, and inexplicable combinations of figures and objects. It is emblematic that the title of one of his most significant books, based on the whimsical adventures of an anthropomorphic cat, “Mr. Jones”, is indeed “Nonsense” (“Senza Senso”, 1987). His is such an ambiguous universe that would be unsettling, if not for the counterbalance of a backdrop of serene detachment and gentle introspection, a velvety touch capable of dampening any sense of alienation and pain.
Even in this illustration, despite the tragic theme being highlighted by the few essential and geometric strokes that define the silhouette of the fallen soldier, both the wheat field rendered in delicate chromatic tones ranging from beige to soft brown, and the poppies depicted as a kind of poetic shower of red spots, can be seen as signs of this deliberate mitigation of pathos by the artist.