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ARTE<br />
36<br />
Nelle raffigurazioni<br />
di Paule si inseriscono spesso<br />
figure umane.<br />
Paule often included figures<br />
in his works.<br />
orgoglioso del popolo sardo,<br />
reso dall’artista con uno<br />
stile secco e deciso, tutto<br />
giocato su forme geometriche<br />
accentuate da forti e sapienti<br />
chiaroscuri. Uomini<br />
che indossano costumi tradizionali,<br />
vecchi dalla lunga<br />
barba bianca, donne avvolte<br />
in pesanti mantelli intente<br />
a filare in silenzio. Nelle<br />
xilografie di Paule l’anima<br />
sarda torna a rivivere in<br />
un’arte sospesa nel tempo,<br />
che ricorda i primi dipinti<br />
dei protagonisti delle avanguardie<br />
russe, da Larionov<br />
a Malevic. Ma anche questo<br />
nuovo capitolo della vita<br />
del pictor spelaeus era destinato a concludersi<br />
di colpo, quando nel 1924 il sindaco<br />
Tore si trasferisce a Cagliari e Paule<br />
decide di tornare a Capri, dove rimarrà<br />
fino alla sua morte improvvisa, nel<br />
1951. Anch’essa peraltro avvolta nella<br />
leggenda, che vede il pittore accasciarsi<br />
al suolo dopo una lunga e fragorosa risata.<br />
Sono anni fecondi, che vedono l’artista<br />
proseguire la sua interpretazione del<br />
genius loci dell’isola attraverso la xilografia.<br />
Scorci di case, profili di scogli, vedute<br />
di casolari ombreggiati dai pini, barche<br />
con i loro rematori: immagini di una<br />
realtà sospesa in un tempo lontano,<br />
quando Capri non era ancora il ritrovo<br />
mondano del jet-set internazionale. Al-<br />
lora, i “compagni di strada” di Paule erano<br />
artisti che avevano identificato quel<br />
piccolo angolo di mondo come fonte di<br />
ispirazione per i loro dipinti: Raffaele<br />
Castello, Otto Sohn-Rethel, Walter Depas,<br />
Carlo Perindani. Protagonisti di un<br />
mondo documentato dal catalogo della<br />
mostra “Dioniso tra le isole. Hans Paule:<br />
un artista e il suo tempo” organizzata<br />
qualche anno fa da La Conchiglia Edizioni<br />
& Arte e curata da Antonella Basilico<br />
Pisaturo. Grazie al paziente lavoro<br />
della studiosa e di Giorgio Pellegrini,<br />
abbiamo scoperto il talento del pittore<br />
cavernicolo, che ha saputo cogliere l’anima<br />
di Capri in maniera originale e inaspettata.<br />
■<br />
DA “DIONISO TRA LE ISOLE” - LA CONCHIGLIA ED.<br />
of the island, in Tonara, a town in the<br />
Barbagia di Belvi region, where he lived in<br />
the mansard above the apartment of<br />
Giovanni Tore, the town mayor. It was there,<br />
in that stone house overlooking the woods,<br />
that the artist first experimented with the<br />
technique that would become his main form<br />
of expression: wood engraving. “That<br />
ubiquitous chestnut wood, Tonara’s real<br />
resource, robust and light yet pliable and<br />
soft, accustomed to the torture of the<br />
woodcutters and the skilled woodcarvers’<br />
tools for millennia,” as the art historian<br />
Giorgio Pellegrini described it when he<br />
reconstructed Paule’s artistic venture in<br />
Sardinia.<br />
A venture that led to the painter’s turning his<br />
mansard into a workshop where he produced<br />
scores of woodcuts devoted to rural life in the<br />
Barbagia. Works that captured the proud yet<br />
self-effacing nature of the Sardinians,<br />
rendered by the artist in an essential, cleancut<br />
style pivoting on geometric shapes<br />
accentuated by bold, masterly chiaroscuro.<br />
Men in traditional costumes, elderly men with<br />
long white beards, women wrapped in heavy<br />
cloaks, silent and intent on their spinning. In<br />
Paule’s woodcuts, the Sardinian soul comes<br />
alive in an art suspended in time that is<br />
reminiscent of the early paintings by the<br />
protagonists of the Russian avant-garde, from<br />
Larionov to Malevic.<br />
Yet even this new chapter in the life of the<br />
Pictor Spelaeus was destined to end abruptly,<br />
when Mayor Tore moved to Cagliari in 1924<br />
and Paule decided to return to Capri, where he<br />
would remain until he died suddenly in 1951. A<br />
passing that in itself was the stuff of legend; the<br />
story went that the painter had collapsed in the<br />
middle of an uncontrollable belly laugh.<br />
And they were productive years, during<br />
which the artist continued to express the<br />
island’s “genius loci” in his woodcuts. Views<br />
of houses, rocks silhouetted against the sky,<br />
isolated cottages in the shadow of pine trees,<br />
boats and their rowers: images of a reality<br />
frozen in a past era when Capri was not yet<br />
the favourite haunt of the international jet set.<br />
At that time, Paule’s “fellow travelers” were<br />
artists who saw that small corner of the world<br />
as the inspiration for their paintings: Raffaele<br />
Castello, Otto Sohn-Rethel, Walter Depas<br />
and Carlo Perindani. All protagonists of a<br />
world documented in the catalogue of the<br />
exhibition ‘Dioniso tra le isole. Hans Paule:<br />
un artista e il suo tempo’ (‘Dionysus between<br />
the Islands. Hans Paule: An artist and His<br />
Times’) organized some years ago by La<br />
Conchiglia Edizioni & Arte and curated by<br />
Antonella Basilico Pisaturo. Thanks to the<br />
painstaking work of this scholar and Giorgio<br />
Pellegrini, we have been able to discover the<br />
talent of the cave painter, who captured<br />
Capri’s spirit in such an original and<br />
refreshing way. ■