Flavio Costantini
Flavio Costantini (21 September 1926 – 20 May 2013) was an Italian artist. Costantini created portraits of writers and artists for newspapers, and illustrated several novels. His early works were inspired by the novelist
Mozart, the French Revolution and its victims, Yekaterinburg and the murder of Nicholas II and his family. His last series offered a dark reading of Pinocchio
, which he considered one of the three or four greatest Italian novels.
Biography
Early life
In September 1926 he was born in Rome to middle-class parents, and his father was an amateur painter. As a child, he was crafty, and kept a diary accompanied with newspaper cut-outs, collages, photos and drawings. At a renowned Roman high school, he failed French and Latin.
World War II
Costantini's experiences during
Auschwitz, who "bows his head and prays / for us all". Costantini died in Genoa after a short illness. A memorial meeting, with talks by friends and critics, was held on 12 June 2013 at the Museo Luzzati
, Genoa, which holds a number of his works.
Inspiration
He first experimented with
Kafka's work. "His earliest ventures into art were motivated more by intellectual frustration than by artistic masters. 'I started to draw because I read the Kafka books… it was impossible to write like Kafka, so I began to draw'. Other writers followed, but it was the human condition as portrayed by Kafka that was to remain the dominant influence in Costantini’s world."[4] But it wasn't until the 1960s when he read Victor Serge's
Memoires of a Revolutionary that he began to champion anarchism through his works.
Novels illustrated
- The Pony by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1969, reprint 2006)[5]
- Heart by Edmondo De Amicis (1977) [6]
- The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad (1989)[7]
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1997) [8]
See also
References
- ^ "È morto Flavio Costantini, il ricordo di Tonino Conte" (in Italian). Genova.mentelocale.it. 2007-07-16. Retrieved 2013-06-02.
- ^ Farina, Roberto. "Flavio Constantini. An Experienced Anarchist". Archived from the original on 24 May 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
- ^ Costantini, ed. Francesca Danovaro and Matteo Fochessati, Genoa, Nugae, 2010.
- ^ [1] Archived 2013-08-12 at the Wayback Machine "Obituary: FLAVIO COSTANTINI (Rome, 21 September 1926—Rapallo, 20 May 2013)". Christie Books. 21 May 2013. Site accessed 1 June 2013.
- ^ Mayakovsky, Vladimir. The Horse of Fire. Emme Edizioni, 1969 Nugae Milan, Genoa, 2006.
- ^ De Amicis, Edmondo. Heart. Olivetti: Milan, 1977.
- ^ Conrad,Joseph. The Shadow Line. Nuages: Milan, 1989.
- ^ Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Nuages: Milan, 1997.
External links
- Gallery at the Kate Sharpley Library
- Christy Books: Anarchist Publisher Archived 2013-08-12 at the Wayback Machine
- Filmed interview on YouTube
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