The first men
Sardinia has been occupied since the Stone Age. The most outstanding civilization of the early Sardinian history is certainly that of the Nuraghes. Its name comes from the most distinctive architectural feature of the landscape, the conical stone towers scattered throughout Sardinia. From the 18th century B.C., Nuraghic craftsmen produced decorated vases and bronze statuettes. These brunzittus, cast in lost wax, illustrate all kinds of themes: daily life, divinities, ships, animals. The largest collection of Sardinian archaeological remains can be found in the Archaeological Museum of Cagliari
. The history of the island from Prehistory to the Byzantine era is reconstructed through statuettes of the Mother Goddess, Nuraghic bronzes and Roman jewels in particular. The open-air sites allow you to explore the remains left by the Romans two thousand years ago. Situated on the seaside, the Tharros and Nora sites invite you to complete a slice of ancient culture with a little dive.Sculpture: a Sardinian tradition
The first examples of Sardinian sculpture date back to the Neolithic period. In addition to statuettes of the mother deity, there are bas-reliefs carved with bullfighting heads in the domus de janas
, the "witches' houses" common on the island.However, it was not until the 14th century that the art of sculpture began to stand out from the prestigious artists. At their head, Nino Pisano carved works in metal and wood. Woodcarving did not develop until the 18th century, with the masters of Sassari, Antonio Sanna and Francesco Carta. Antonio Cano and Andrea Galassi are the most appreciated sculptors of the island.
Franciscan monk, the sculptor Antonio Cano was born in Sassari in 1775. He received a neoclassical training in architecture under the direction of Canova in Rome. However, it is towards the rococo style that he turns, finding the means to express his personality at best. An example of this can be found in the sculpture of the Immacolata that he created for the church of Santa Maria de Betlem in Sassari.
Neoclassicism is represented by Andrea Galassi. Born in 1793, Andrea Galassi was also trained by Canova. Among his neo-classical works are the funeral monument to Maria Luisa de Savoia in the dome of Cagliari and the marble statue of Beato Amedeo in the church of Sant'Anna in Cagliari. Galassi also carved the altars and the statuary of the Cathedral of Oristano.
The most prestigious Sardinian sculptor of the 18th century, Giuseppe Antonio Lonis was born in Senorbì in 1720 and worked in Naples at a very young age with the greatest wood engravers of the time. Lonis dedicated himself exclusively to the sculpture of sacred simulacra. Back in Sardinia, he opens a workshop and will remain there until his death in 1805. Lonis' style ranges from Neapolitan Baroque to Neoclassicism, with a predilection for polychromy and very obvious Hispanic influences. His works can be found all over the island.Emergence of Sardinian painting
Painting developed on the island from the 14th century with a dominance for the art of the altarpiece until the end of the following century. The pinacoteca of Cagliari gathers the main pictorial currents from the 15th century to the present day. Here you can discover works by the Stampatia school, of which Pietro Cavaro was the great initiator.
A painter of the 16th century, Cavaro frequented Barcelona and Neapolitan artists before settling in Stampatia, a district of his home town of Cagliari. He then became the organizer and major representative of what would become known as the Scuola di Stampace, the artistic movement that dominated the island in the 16th century. Among his most beautiful works is the great altarpiece in the Palazzo Comunale (Town Hall) of Cagliari, representing the homage of the town councillors to the Virgin Mary, made between 1527 and 1539.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, anonymous masters made religious subjects for the island's churches. Little is known about the lives of these remarkable artists. The master of Ozieri, the master of Castelsardo and the master of Sanluri are perhaps the most esteemed. The first lived in the 16th century and worked in northern Sardinia. His style is of Sardinian-Hispanic influence and we find here the kinship of Pietro Cavaro. The master of Castelsardo, active in the 15th and 16th centuries, combines components of Italian Renaissance painting with Flemish influences. Of Catalan origin, he went to Sardinia around 1490 because he was entrusted with the realization of the altarpiece della Porziuncola. It was placed in the church of San Francesco in Cagliari and has since been divided into several rooms that are now kept in the town's art gallery.
Towards the present time
Thereafter, Sardinian artists were formed around the Mediterranean basin. For the most part, they had careers both on their island and on the mainland. Individual styles were born from these exchanges. They proposed their vision of Sardinian art, mixing pictorial influences from elsewhere and Sardinian concerns. Among these was the painter and writer Antonio Ballero, born in Nuoro in 1864. At the age of 30, he began his career as a painter with a predilection for folk genre scenes: parties, balls, customs, landscapes. His career as an artist is in line with the predominant currents of the time, verism and divisionism, to which he will never fully conform
Francesco Ciusa was the first Sardinian sculptor to be noticed at the Venice Biennale. Born in Nuoro in 1883, Francesco Ciusa won first prize at the Biennale at the age of 20 with La Madre dell'ucciso(The Mother of the Murdered Man). In defiance of the classical canons, the work represents the resigned attitude of the island towards its dominators. In 1928 he exhibited one of his last great works, L'Anfora sarda (The Sardinian Amphora), at the Venice Biennale
Born in 1887, Mario Delitala became famous at a very young age, taking him to Rome, Bologna, Turin and Venice. However, the turning point in his career came in 1924, when he was commissioned to decorate the council chamber of the town hall of Nuoro, which he adorned with a painting celebrating the "sacred values" of Sardinian culture. He was then entrusted with the decoration of the Lanusei Cathedral, the Great Hall of the University of Sassari and the Cathedral of Alghero. At the end of the 1920s he took part in the Venice Biennial and the Rome Quadrennial.
Pinuccio Sciola (1942-2016) is world-famous for his sound stones, sculptures that emit sounds as soon as you touch them. In 1968, he decided to turn San Sperate into a village museum. He trained in murals in Mexico before covering the limewashed walls of the houses of San Sperate with frescoes and installing sculptures in the village squares. Now you can visit his Giardino Sonoro (the sound garden) which contains about a hundred of his musical works. To be discovered.
Birth of street art
Italian muralism has its capital in Sardinia. At the same time as Pinuccio Sciola launched his village-museum project, the small town of Orgosolo hosted his first mural painting in 1969. There are now 150 frescoes that are spread out in the streets and squares of the village. The first impulse was given by the anarchic collective Dioniso. Shortly afterwards, a teacher from Siena, in collaboration with schoolchildren, created a public work to commemorate the Liberation from Italian Fascism. The collective paintings born of political fervour also show scenes of rural life. The 1980s turned more radically to the transformations that Italian society was undergoing.
Little by little, the streets became the site of aesthetic experiments. All styles are mixed together: realism, naive or impressionism. However, Sardinian muralism remained attached to the notion of collective and popular art. The hopes, fears and aspirations of an entire community that may have felt excluded from the outside world at some point in its history crystallize on these walls.Contemporary Art
The Municipal Art Gallery houses the largest collection of Sardinian artists from the 19th and 20th centuries with a focus on the 1960s and 1980s. More than 650 works by Italian artists including great names of Futurism are represented: Balla, Depero, Boccioni and De Pisis.
The municipal slaughterhouse of Calasetta has been restored to house the Museum of Contemporary Art. Its collection, built up by the painter Ermanno Leinardi, covers the main European trends of the 1960s and 1970s. The first floor is divided between the collection of constructivist art and abstract art. The French Constructivists section is particularly rich (Sonia Delaunay, Jean Leppien, Aurelie Nemours, Yves Popet and many others), but renowned Italian artists are also exhibited, such as Lucio Fontana, Mauro Reggiani or Luigi Veronesi to name but a few.
The AB Factory gallery promotes the talents of tomorrow. Paola Falconi, born in Cagliari in 1968, remains marked by the tales of her childhood. Trained in Florence, she practices drawing, painting and sculpture. Recently, she has become interested in contemporary reality, without setting aside the world of the imaginary. Several museums and galleries exhibit her work impregnated with Sardinia.
Giorgio "Jorghe" Casu was an art therapist before embarking on an artistic career in 2002. His dreamlike universe, full of delicacy and melancholy, has seduced even the White House, which now keeps his portrait of President Obama.
Cédric Dasesson is a photographer and conceptual artist based in Cagliari. He experiments with space to propose a contemporary definition of it. His fascinating photographs on the theme of water show Sardinia in a particularly original light.
