Giovanni Testori

Giovanni Testori (Novate Milanese, 12 May 1923 – Milan, 16 March 1993) was an Italian writer, journalist, poet, art and literary critic, dramatist, screenplay writer, theatrical director and painter.

“It is enough to love reality, always, in every possible way, even in the precipitate and approximate way that has been mine.

But love it.

Apart from that, there are no precepts”.

Giovanni Testori was born in Novate Milanese, a town on the outskirts of Milan, the third of six siblings.

Both his parents were originally from the upper Brianza area.

His father, Edoardo, was from Sormano; his mother, Lina Paracchi, from Lasnigo.

These were places that remained close to Testori's consciousness and a part of his creative imagery.

His memories frequently return to the period of his childhood and his family, to which he remained intimately linked.

Edoardo Testori had moved from Sormano to set up a textile factory alongside the tracks of the Ferrovie Nord (Saft, F.lli Testori Filtri e Feltri, now Testori Spa).

Beside it, he built his home.

The house where Giovanni grew up, and where he spent the larger part of his existence, is today the seat of the Associazione Giovanni Testori.

Testori applied himself inconsistently during his earlier school years, but in 1939 he enrolled in the “liceo classico” [classical high school], obtaining “maturità” (high school certificate) in 1942.

While at the “liceo”, he cultivated his passion for art and the theatre.

Before reaching the age of majority, he had published, as art critic, a series of articles in “Via Consolare”.

The first to be written, in 1941, was a brief essay on Giovanni Segantini.

In addition to “Via Consolare”, Testori contributed to other magazines, such as “Architrave” of Bologna and “Pattuglia di Punta”, with articles dedicated especially to contemporary artists (from Scipione to Manzù and Carlo Carrà).

In September 1942, he enrolled in the faculty of architecture at the Politecnico di Milano.

In these years, alongside articles and monographs on themes of contemporary art (Manzù. Erbe, 1942; Henri Matisse. 25 disegni, 1943), Testori's first writings dedicated to renaissance artists appeared, from Debiti e crediti di Dosso Dossi (“Architrave”, Bologna, II, 4–5, February–March, p. 3) to Discorso sulle mani di Leonardo (“Pattuglia”, I, 7 May 1942) and Introduzione a Grünewald (“Architrave”, II, 7, May 1942).

In 1942, Testori also made his first appearance as a playwright, with two single-act pieces, La morte and Un quadro.

The texts were published separately in “Via Consolare” and were issued together the following year in a booklet by Edizioni di Pattuglia.

In 1943, during his second year of studies at the Politecnico, Testori was compelled to evacuate with his family for several months to the big house at Sormano, in Valassina.

This created an environment in which he could cultivate the other enthusiasm which he was to maintain for several years, that for painting, which he practiced as a self-taught artist.

In 1943, moreover, “Posizione” (Novara) published his first short story, Morte di Andrea, while his first poem came out in 1945, in Elio Vittorini's “Il Politecnico”.

During the years of the Second World War, pictorial activity acquired a significant weight for Testori, both practically and theoretically.

He published articles which openly took a firm position in the debate between realism and abstraction which was animating the Italian artistic scene, under the strong influence of Picasso.

Testori's own paintings also reflected this influence.

His views on Realtà della pittura (Reality in Painting) were expounded in an article published in December 1945, in the first issue of the Milanese periodical “Argine Numero” (subsequently “Numero Pittura”), produced with companions and friends of “Corrente”.

These included Ernesto Treccani and Renato Guttuso.

The following year, in the same magazine, edited by Testori, there appeared ''Oltre Guernica.

Manifesto del Realismo di pittori e scultori'', signed, as well as by Testori himself, by Giuseppe Ajmone, Rinaldo Bergolli, Egidio Bonfante, Gianni Dova, Ennio Morlotti, Giovanni Paganin, Cesare Peverelli, Vittorio Tavernari and Emilio Vedova.

Testori's idea of reality in art, in this moment, was the opposite of that upheld by his painter friend Renato Guttuso.

The aim was not to reach reality through painting, but “to be able to start from reality.

To have, that is to say, a faith that allows this departure”.

And not so much for painting, added Testori, “as for living”.

A full approach to life first and art next is only possible by starting from a total immersion in reality.

In 1947, Testori obtained a degree in letters at the Università Cattolica di Milano (to which he had transferred in March 1945).

In his thesis, La forma nella pittura moderna, he considered the evolution of form in early 20th century European painting, declaring that the search was ongoing for a shared attitude to Italian realism.

The last chapter, Fisica dello spirito, is a sort of manifesto in which he declares the need for a renewal of art in sacred spaces, which could be achieved if clients and artists were to come to terms with the language of the avant-garde, from Picasso to Léger.

His first period as a painter concluded with the frescoes, now lost, of the Four Evangelists, created in 1948 on the columns supporting the dome of the presbytery in the church of San Carlo al Corso in Milan, and the tormented Crucifixion (1949), now exhibited at Casa Testori.