Critical Notes

It almost seems easier to write Woodns, Umberto Boscolo (Rovigo, 1932-Como, 2008), after which the critics and the mainstream press - having failed to individual his exceptional skills as a painter, he has always worked in solitude without ever exposing in audience - were not interested in him during his intense activity. After a short but incurable disease, was forced to abandon the palette and brushes in his box-office Como, specifically by way of Spartacus 13 / B Rebbio, April 9, 2008, still in the full vigor of the pictorial, ready to be publicly recognized, to follow the death took him by the hand. We hope to accompany him on a lone star where you can continue to paint, in order to carry out an artistic stopped suddenly. Woodns has worked hard all year, with the good and the bad weather, completing over a thousand works, scattered 'everywhere especially in Switzerland, Lombardy and Liguria, leaving a number then, covering his entire and complex pictorial itinerary, just in the house of Rebbio. He got a great sales success among collectors and art lovers, with no personal or collective exhibition, and no recognition or gold medal (certainly come to mind), so humble, self-effacing to the vernissage and flash, compliments and applause. But the works speak for themselves. His painting was not inspired by any particular school, because he has always preferred to work isolated, without guidance and advice. It 'was a complete artist and whimsical, confidential and independent, which, using different techniques and issues puts us now in a position to appreciate its vast and varied work: a simple painting and concrete, easily readable by the layman and tourists who were standing for a short time at his easel, and he wore flattering sales results.

Since we are dealing with one of the last self-study, to an eclectic street painter, it is right to observe and study with a particular attention to really get into the steps that he has been able to accomplish in his work, the fruit of a life largely part devoted almost exclusively to painting: oil beginning with the brush and the spatula and then move the pencil, charcoal, to blood, to sepia, watercolor, to pastels, acrylic, a thumbnail and abstract. His landscapes, his still lifes, its shores of the lakes, its monuments, its promenades, his figures, his horses, his portraits, its squares and geometric shapes are all done with brush strokes and light thin to represent the particular features (especially in the "Stamps"), and strokes at times a bit 'more decisive for the large and vibrant and harmonious views, such as those covered in snow. Everything in perfect harmony with the whole character.

At the end of the seventies he began to sign his works under the pseudonym Woodns and soon became a painter imaginative, distinctive and original style and unmistakable palette arising from her inner world, thanks to an inexhaustible source of encouragement and imagination. It 'a precise painting and felt that came spontaneously from his heart strong and clear love of nature, which know how to get the most beautiful and inspiring. Woodns belongs to the group of painters travelers in the second half of the last century, has traveled the length and breadth of Italy in search of new experiences and inspiration. Street painter versatile, a true lover of nature, it was mainly loyal to a personal realism to paint outdoors and the principle of the capacity of art to communicate with people. E 'come so, from solitary self-taught, different painting techniques and other issues, and just feeling more and more the need to deepen the knowledge of his true profession with serious research and complete.

Woodns was a humble and simple self varied that began at a naive, but loved as long as the portrait with the figurative to the abstract and to devote himself to the thumbnail only at the end of his career, an amateur street, lonely and shy, which has been able to create, for her and for our pleasure, works well, beautiful and sublime, with a lively and varied palette. It was a true naturalist who could catch the most characteristic corners in all its details, return them on canvas and paper white with delicate meticulously and humility. By vocation he felt a naturalist, but did not miss other compositions. Important and fascinating was his landscape painting, a refined experience that touches us and that impresses us, and very like to collectors. In his long artistic career, which lasted more than forty years, Woodns remained primarily a figurative artist, who loved nature and represented a sincere participation and that, by means of colors, could obtain soft atmospheres, skies clear, gentle stretches and snow. A painter genuine, independent, whimsical, jovial, full of creative imagination and color, for its validity painting, should be placed among the great figurative of the Lombard school of the late twentieth century.



by Leonardo Tanno