The Biblical Paintings of Davide Orler

RENATO LAFFRANCHI

La creazione di Eva, 1999,

olio su juta, cm 95x95

Apparently, towards the end of his life, the great Rouault used to stand at the door of the gallery where his pictures were on show and ask visitors whether they were believers or not; he would then tell the non-believers not to bother going in.

I think that my friend Davide, who told me this, was tempted to do the same. And perhaps it would not have been so wrong to do so.

In his most recent works, the biblical pictures, of which only a few appear in the present volume, he saw - and I share his view - the end product of all his research and efforts both as a man and as an artist. These paintings are far-removed from those that focus on purely formal, supposedly artistic values; rather, they offer spiritual suggestions which can only be fully recognised by those whose minds hold the knowledge and memory of God's things, if the heart is capable of recognising in the images portrayed the characters, events and stories narrated in the Books of God.

When I first met him, many years ago, I was charmed, but also a little disconcerted, by the appearance of this great Viking and the unruliness of a passion courageously embodied in works of an almost brutal nature. Indignation in the face of injustice and compassion for the suffering of mankind, tragedies and the plight of the poor were transformed into vigorous songs of love when he painted the austere beauty of his mountains and into caring protection when, in depicting the houses of the common people he even applied wood shingles to the canvas, as if, like a friendly giant, he wanted to strengthen the roofs.

We lost touch for many years and so I did not follow him along the many paths he tried, through the various experiments which the works collected in this volume bear witness to. Every now and again I would visit him to see his icons and find him enthralled and dazed like a starving Lazarus at a king's banquet.

I found him as strong and true to himself as he ever was, but now reassured and softened by a luminous awareness, expert in the Mystery, a firm believer in God, acquainted with the Holy Word. So when I introduced him to friends, I would tell them they were meeting a prophet. But I did not know where he was putting all his efforts with the dedication of a man possessed; I had not seen these works arising from the Bible and devoted to the Bible which recently almost fell on top of me in his studio, crammed with canvases, flashes, apparitions - things new, things numerous, things so convincing as to elicit the surprise, certainty and emotion of a rare spiritual experience. Because the Viking really has become a prophet. And only those who know the Bible and take it seriously (this is where Rouault comes into the picture) can grasp my meaning, and share my thoughts about those men, stubborn, difficult, fiery, severe, even violent a times - Elisha let the bear eat the boys who mocked him - yet, at the same time, tender; men fixed on the Word, who thought of nothing but the Word and had nothing else to give mankind but the Word. Because this is what Davide has become.

And I also believe I know how this transfiguration came about, which path brought this painter, this man, to this new absoluteness, this reduction ad unum of his visions, to this way of painting, so heedless of what painters usually concern themselves with. I believe I know the source of the light I see in his weary eyes. He has experienced something quite unique, a long immersion in the spirit of that art which we call Byzantine and which we should simply call Christian, and I envy him for it.

I use the word immersion, but perhaps I should say absorption, because it was as if he had lost himself, lost his reason, gone off the rails, something shared by all the radical experiences of the soul.

Because his reckless, unrestrained, totalitarian love for Byzantine icons really did contain elements of folly, like the recklessness of all who let themselves be wafted away by the Spirit. It was the risk he took, his passion and his gift. By continually observing and re-observing those icons, he adapted his heart to their rather disconcerting charm, learning to revere their secret grace. He let himself be illuminated and then set alight by their modest glimmer, listening to the silent words; he made of that unlikely kingdom his dwelling place and, by so doing, was able to see the icons for what they really were: not merely as objects of one art amongst the many arts of man, but as almost sacramental "signs" of the Truth, the truth of the divine and of man and history, of things and nature. Masters of painting, but above all, masters of feeling; discreet, yet convincing testimonies of the Presence.

Having gained this knowledge - and God knows it would be a good thing if more artists and the whole of mankind today had at least an inkling of this spiritual experience - Davide could not help but paint as he now does; not like a Byzantine hagiographer, since there is little of the spirit of that art in the production of fashionable facsimiles, mere copies that line the shelves of boutiques selling so-called sacred art, but like a true Christian painter. He paints like a painter who has fixed his gaze on the things of God, on God's stories, on the stories of men of God, attacks by the forces of Evil, and the battles of the forces of Good. These things and indeed all things are now seen by him in the one Light and he tells them as they are told in the Bible, where he himself discovered them.

He has become a "biblical" painter not by observing and reproducing the forms of these icons, but by losing himself in the spirit which informs them, obeying the "need" dictated to him, which is not that of a particular "style", but a condition of the soul; through this obedience he has become a Christian painter. Davide does not merely copy the icons because he has grasped their true significance only too well. We recognize rhythms, movements, relations; we find correspondences, allusions and indications as concise as a choreographer's notes, which remind us of the fundamental musicality of the icons. We see the iconographic rigor of the arrangement and attitudes of the figures, so essential to meaning; we find the parsimonious compendium of the stories.

But beneath the extremely simple composition, beneath the accuracy of the citations, beneath the apparent conformity which seems tO extinguish the old impulsiveness of my Viking, stifling his imagination, that impulsiveness remains. Though it may seem tamed, his imagination is free; his passion, evident. Piety, revolt, compassion and rage, denouncement, tenderness and forgiveness sing together a great song of Love. Before my eyes I seem to see his picture Annunciazione, where the slightest vibrations of light, the silent charm of the words of Luke come shining immaterially out of the canvas, as if from Beyond.

I think of the almost human anguish of our Lord as he clasps his arms, cold and afraid, during that friendless night in the garden of Gethsemane, of His exhausted body lying on the earth that had soaked up all His blood, of the Puerpera Santa lying (in the Byzantine manner) in a shade of red, both regal and bloody at the same time. I think of the Pesca sul Lago where the windblown waves sparkle under a joyful early morning sky, like the Grecian waters of Sicily.

I think of the fiery, dramatic prophets, the dazzling or barely perceptible angels, the mysterious guests in Abraham's tent, the killings, the nuptials, the loves told to us by the Bible and painted for us by Orler.

These works are not to be found here but they nevertheless deserve a fitting presentation, because I firmly believe that this unique painter should be made available to those who seek, with a heart sincere, the true meaning and teaching of art. These paintings should be seen by the Church, which is nowadays in such confusion between the legitimization of the present and the fascination for the past, lest the present be, as it often is, a disappointing testimony to an empty void and the lessons of the past, nothing more than a lifeless exhumation.

Among the pictures published in this volume - and the choice was difficult - I think of the immediacy of the images, the faithfulness of the narrative, the variety of colors, the turmoils of wind and fire, punishments, assumptions, nocturnal tempests, quiet pastorals, vigorous embraces, the merciful rescues, Moses dividing the waters as the wind would, the ramshackle pinnacles of Babel, the relentlessness of the divine plagues, the joy of the glory. I think of this Bible of the poor which Davide has given us back, these pages of God's alphabet which invite us to read and learn; we who are now illiterate and forgetful of the Holy Writ.