On this page, you can find an exhaustive list of the artworks by painter Edda Martini that have been gathered on this site.
Drawing and painting have been, since her tender age, Edda Martini’s favorite modes of expression. These techniques experienced extensive and profitable developments already from the years of the Second World War, when the future painter attended the “A. Venturi ”of Modena. There her teacher, among others, was the watercolorist Arcangelo Salvarani. These germs would then blossom into a very intense activity that would accompany her throughout her life. The artistic-cultural environment in which her training took place, and which she later joined, had chosen the “return to order” as a reference, strongly supported by the authoritative Italian pictorial movements “Valori plastici” and “Novecento”. The intention was to make use of the figurative in the stylistic recovery of the great classical tradition, far from the unscrupulous dissent of the avant-gardes.
There were mainly three genres into which she ventured immediately after her diploma, obtained in 1943: the still life, the oil portrait, and the ink drawing of landscapes and architectural views. The latter focused above all on Carpi as it was, with the “dashed” technique of Morandi’s memory. Starting from the 1960s, the artist gradually abandons oil painting. Instead, she replaces it with pastels and, primarily, with clear and delicate watercolors, which eventually become her most congenial practice. However, she maintains the graphic sign with ink or china pen as a priority expressive code, as she uses it in a plentiful series of small imaginary landscapes ‒ almost chinoiserie with a rococo flavor ‒ of views, with architectural glimpses and decorative compositions in liberty style. During the seventies and beyond, Edda Martini comes in contact with a Carpi production in the textile sector and creates multiple paintings on fabric, enriching the fashion collections of some emerging companies with exclusive decorations. Her favorite inspirational motifs become the urban and rural landscape, the floral paintings, the butterflies, and above all else the portrait ‒ almost always feminine. All these themes, masterfully treated in watercolor, merge into a harmonious hymn to life in its purest and most refined beauty. A healthy and vigorous countryside populated by oxen and herds of horses full of energy; urban views of Carpi, quiet and sunny, mostly as the town appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century before industrialization and the economic boom; human figures ‒ sometimes stylized, but always inserted in the rhythms of daily life or in the scenarios of nature, to the point of almost dissolving in them. Again, flowers and colorful butterflies in their wonderful integrity; evanescent faces of women of mysterious charm: an evocation of silent film stars, in the stylized elegance of art déco glamour… The result is an artistic synthesis of countless facets, which often combines and assembles what the painter’s sensibility elects to be “beautiful and good”, manifestations of a perception of a fantastic reality, pristine and serene.
Paolo Dall’Olio
In her works, the painter uses various techniques and supports.
Techniques: watercolor, oil, tempera colors, acrylic paint, pastels, wax colors, chalks, pencils, charcoal, sepia, sanguine, ink pen, marker, colors for miniatures, fabric paint, glass engravings, mixed media (watercolored pens, a juxtaposition of various techniques, especially in those works characterized by a “non finito” style)
Supports: paper, watercolor paper, black paper, glass paper, canvas, cardboard, avoriolina, plastic materials, glass, fabric.
Subjects: figures, landscapes, horses, butterflies, flowers, still lifes. Figures range from faces (specifically portraits), full figures, and sacred figures, as well as figures and scenes of mythological, allegorical, and folkloristic nature. In the case of miniated figures alone, the artworks are usually reproductions of other artists’ pictures.
Digital reproduction
We tried to reproduce the colors and hues as faithfully to the originals as possible. The supports Edda used were never completely white, and on the contrary, the colors of her canvases and papers range widely. This led to a tricky process of digitalization and the results are obviously not homogeneous.
We decided not to remove impurities and stains: sometimes these are indeed accidental, but in some specific cases, e.g. in willingly antiqued paintings, they are an active part of the artwork.
We report all measures in centimeters, referring to the visible part of the support.
Depending on the format and quality of the support we performed the digitalization using a 600dpi flatbed scanner or a Reflex digital camera equipped with a 60mm macro lens.
We used RawTerapee and Gimp for digital elaborations on the pictures.