Borgo Museo | Sculture 1976 – 2004

Biography

Galeazzo Auzzi is first of all a Florentine: he was born in Florence in the Santo Spirito district on 4 March 1934 and died at the age of 81 on the night of 7 January 2016. Auzzi is known in particular as a portraitist of Popes, Saints, Blessed and knightly battles. But also for his solitary and reckless nature: on the morning of the flood in Florence, he paints the Madonna dell’Alluvione on a wardrobe door in his house. Auzzi is a man who dedicates much of his time to the Church and this is the reason for the many portraits of him in the last ten Popes in history that he has lived. The work of Maestro Galeazzo is characterised by two strong elements: his personal wall technique (it is the artist himself who mixes the earth to create the colours) and his studio, the “Cantiere dei Dreams”, as he himself defines it, a privileged observatory on the city of Florence (always having next to it the symbols of Florentine Christianity, the Bel San Giovanni and the Cathedral, which has always inspired him in his works which today can be found and admired on all five continents.

Philosophy

Self-taught, he follows the instinct of his independent character and begins at a very young age to devote himself to drawing and painting. Already in his first works, Auzzi looks for the old Florentine alleys and palaces that show him the main elements of Renaissance architecture so that he can study and resume them. He constantly dedicates himself to the search for a personal modern figurative expression linked to the immortal values ​​of ancient art with particular reference to the Egyptian, Etruscan and Roman ones. With his tolled wall technique, Auzzi manages to reproduce large-scale works of classical inspiration but more agile and dimensioned than the traditional fresco; the incisiveness of the sign and a certain stylisation which, however, does not neglect the characters of the character. Auzzi reconstructs the base for his works with lime and mortar diluted in different proportions depending on the light or darkness required by the background, creating the illusion of a large fresco. In his works he interprets the spirit of the chosen subject rather than giving it an oleographic representation, a pictorial expression that recalls the stereotyped, banal, without expressive force and originality.

Artwork in Castagno

Paloscia says that Auzzi had a sanctuary relationship with Castagno, he loved to spend whole summer days here in the company of nature and the inhabitants. Here in his sculpture Archaic Composition you can see a stylised and original allegory of the Holy Family during the biblical scene of the birth of Jesus. The stone on which the whole is represented is rectangular in shape and with jagged sides; the surface is designed with the scratch technique, deliberately represented with an archaic style. To the right of the slab, three small figures representing the Magi, on the same side but at the top some small arches depict an aqueduct or the Colosseum, iconographic references to the Roman Empire. On the left, on the other hand, we can see three other figures, the Holy Family, and the sun above them.