Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato 1900-1995

Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato, when commenting on his creative process, states, "I have to see the landscape, the things. If I don't see, I don't paint." And the artist, by the way, has seen a lot: he was born and died almost at the same time as the 20th century. The transit he experienced between Brazil and Italy allowed him to follow both the construction of a new capital city – Belo Horizonte –and the reconstruction of devastated cities – such as the post-war Arsiero, where he worked from 1920 to 1924. Lorenzato's body of work, however, does not necessarily focus on the rise of the industrial metropolis or the great struggles of civilization. Although he has followed significant historical events, the artist decided to dedicate his paintings to simple themes depicted with originality and vigor.

It is interesting to think that Lorenzato saw the entire 20th century happen but chose to look at the common side (both in the sense of the banal and the shared element) of existence. It is as if, somehow, the scale of everyday experiences and the perennial aspect of nature could appease the barbarism that occurs in major disputes of narrative and power, this being the core of the biggest conflicts he has followed. After returning to Brazil in 1948, he increasingly engaged in his artistic creation, built his house in the Cabana neighborhood, on the periphery of Belo Horizonte, in 1960, and produced there a large number of pieces we know today. Often, a butterfly in his backyard was enough for a painting to be born – at other times, long walks nourished the eye of the walker-artist, who, like all great creators, perceived and transfigured in his own way the extraordinary of the everyday.