Salvatore Fratantonio nasce l’1 febbraio 1938, a Modica, dove, appena adolescente, comincia ad appassionarsi alla pittura. Successivamente, da autodidatta studia arte contemporanea a Roma. Qui sviluppa una tecnica e un’espressione artistiche originali, riconosciute da numerosi critici, fra cui Diego Guadagnino, un fine poeta e acuto intellettuale siciliano che più di altri ne individua la cifra nel peculiare legame, metastorico ma vitale, con alcune forme della sua isola felice: «Il suo mondo, coeso da una esemplare fedeltà tematica pur nella variegata gamma espressiva delle sue stagioni creative, rimane quello della solitudine felice, lontana dalle interferenze dell’alterità, cut off from all contamination of historical evolution. [...] One of the possible definitions of art by the Master of Modica may be that of a secret relationship with forms that offer us the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. And they are trees, hills, beaches, Fratantonio horizons that can give a life like an old demiurge who magically transmits the interlocutor of his works. " An art that Guadagnino from acute art critic and expert on the work of the painter calls "geosurrealista. But who knows if the size of dreaming between art and reality of life that painful gap that we think there is.
Fratantonio 'in the bearded face of a greek god hides the wisdom of an old Sicilian peasant, "says Guadagnino. And perhaps it is no coincidence that a few years ago the poet has brought me a beautiful painting by the cover of the book "The peasant leader," whose protagonist, Domenico Messina ("a man in the round of making and build from the bottom and designed with the ideal values \u200b\u200bpolitics - the exact opposite of the politicians now rampant, "well describes the historian Giuseppe Carlo Marino), acts of large estates in Sicily, characterized by 'the waste places of the" wheat ", the scorched valleys and rocky ridges "which, to paraphrase Guadagnino, is the harsh reality of where parents Fratantonio Messina and" went for ears, "or" to dig in the fields, "dark to dark". " A reality that these, set in a historical becoming alien to the artist, helping to transform together using the tools of revolutionary socialism and trade unionism, even the ancient wisdom of the Sicilian peasant. Two
existential dimensions significantly away the painter Salvatore geosurrealista Fratantonio and that of the peasant leader Domenico Messina: the size of the art and history, yet united by "perlaSicilia" for his land and his wisdom. But
a wisdom that, following Euno and Messina know break the chains of oppression.
Salvatore Vaiana
Fratantonio 'in the bearded face of a greek god hides the wisdom of an old Sicilian peasant, "says Guadagnino. And perhaps it is no coincidence that a few years ago the poet has brought me a beautiful painting by the cover of the book "The peasant leader," whose protagonist, Domenico Messina ("a man in the round of making and build from the bottom and designed with the ideal values \u200b\u200bpolitics - the exact opposite of the politicians now rampant, "well describes the historian Giuseppe Carlo Marino), acts of large estates in Sicily, characterized by 'the waste places of the" wheat ", the scorched valleys and rocky ridges "which, to paraphrase Guadagnino, is the harsh reality of where parents Fratantonio Messina and" went for ears, "or" to dig in the fields, "dark to dark". " A reality that these, set in a historical becoming alien to the artist, helping to transform together using the tools of revolutionary socialism and trade unionism, even the ancient wisdom of the Sicilian peasant. Two
existential dimensions significantly away the painter Salvatore geosurrealista Fratantonio and that of the peasant leader Domenico Messina: the size of the art and history, yet united by "perlaSicilia" for his land and his wisdom. But
a wisdom that, following Euno and Messina know break the chains of oppression.
Salvatore Vaiana
