(Bagheria/Palermo 1912–1987 Rom)
Muraglia cinese giallo-grigia,1972, signiert Guttuso 72, rückseitig signiert, datiert, Öl auf Leinwand, 110 x 90 cm, gerahmt

Provenienz:
Galleria La Tavolozza, Palermo (rücks. Klebezettel und mehrere Stempel)
Sammlung F. Pellin, Varese
Europäische Privatsammlung

Ausgestellt:
Palermo, Renato Guttuso, Galleria La Tavolozza, Februar-März 1973, Ausst.-Kat. Nr. 10 mit Abb.
Mailand, Renato Guttuso, Galleria Il Castello, 1973, Ausst.-Kat. Nr. 8
Genf, Renato Guttuso, Galerie Jean Krugier, Juli 1974, Ausst.-Kat. Nr.6 mit Abb.
Busto Arsizio, Renato Guttuso, Italiana Arte, 13. Oktober - 27. November 1977, Ausst.-Kat. mit Abb.
Venedig, Renato Guttuso. Opere dal 1931 al 1981, Palazzo Grassi, 4. April-20. Juni 1982, Ausst.-Kat. S. 188, Nr. 97 mit Abb.
Mailand-Rom, Renato Guttuso. Opere della Fondazione Francesco Pellin, Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, 27. Januar-6. März 2005, Chiostro del Bramante, 16. März-5. Juni 2005, Ausst.-Kat. S. 128-129, Nr. 34 mit Abb.

Literatur:
Il Giornale di Sicilia, Palermo, 1. März 1973, S. 13 mit Abb. (Detail)
E. Crispolti, Catalogo ragionato generale dei dipinti di Renato Guttuso, Bd. III, Mondadori & associati, Mailand 1985, S. 156, Nr. 72/5 mit Abb.

Parallel zu dem dem Kolosseum gewidmeten Zyklus von Gemälden arbeitete Guttuso in den Jahren 1972/73 an dem Zyklus der Chinesischen Mauer. Dieser besteht aus drei großformatigen Gemälden, welche die Chinesische Mauer im Frühjahr, Herbst und Winter darstellen. Das vorliegende Werk ist Teil der Arbeit, die dem Herbst gewidmet ist und die sich durch ein dominantes Gelb sowie eine synthetische Wiedergabe der Landschaft und eine detaillierte Ansicht der gewundenen Mauer auszeichnet. Die Mauer ist dabei ein mythischer und historischer Ort, ein Subjekt, das sich wie eine Schlange bewegt und somit ein eigenständiger Protagonist in einer abgelegenen und eindrucksvollen Berglandschaft ist.

Goffredo Parise was a close friend of Renato Guttuso’s from the years after the war until his death in 1986, shortly before Guttuso’s own. He was one of the writers, including Moravia, who very much appreciated Guttuso’s art. The latter also made a famous portrait that depicts him in a factory of red books in China. Also famous is the preface Parise wrote for the presentation of the Vucciria painting at Galleria Toninelli in 1974.

An anecdote concerning “Muraglia Cinese Grigio-gialla” is linked to the journey to China that Parise undertook in 1966 as an envoy of the Corriere della Sera newspaper. His task was to describe China after Mao’s Long March, and this resulted in a book with the title “Cara Cina” (Dear China).

Even more importantly, Parise took many photographs, including a few depicting the Great Wall, which was little known in the West at that time, and about which he wrote in his articles. His were black and white photographs, and Guttuso painted some of them imagining their colours when reading Goffredo Parise’s articles. In one case, he imagines a Wall with multicoloured flowers, in another one he reminisces about a passage from Parise’ book “Cara Cina” (p. 36 of the Italian edition):

“At the top of this large, humpbacked animal, on its vertebral crests, a sinuous wall winds its way for ten thousand kilometres. It is hard to explain why, but when one sees it all of a sudden, running as it does to the left and to the right, going up and down, always looking same, with its equidistant turrets, the eye first experiences a kind of suspension, a sort of immobile photographic calmness, then a slow narrowing of perspective, like a telescope, and finally a violent expansion, to the effect that the humps, mountains and stones become smaller and smaller, and the brown landscape, the grey wall, the blue sky, the yellow sun are like a drawing made by a child poet on ruled paper in a school notebook. There is also a little train that goes through the mountain with its line of smoke, reappears beyond the wall and disappears whistling among the yellow bends and yellow planes – it’s the Trans-Siberian train.”