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Augusta Stylianou Gallery 
He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, winning a scholarship as a worthy competitor among the four faculties. He obtained the diploma in painting under the guidance of the masters Carlo Siviero, Vincenzo Volpe, Vincenzo Migliaro and Paolo Vetri. The first contact with the territory of Formia was in 1933-1934, when he was called to paint the chapel of St. Anthony in the church of Maranola. Here he met Virginia Mastrogiovanni that he married in 1934. War and Reconstruction In the hardest times of the war the family, now composed of four children, was forced to flee first into the cave in the mountains in the territory of Coreno Ausonio, then passing through the war front down in Calabria. At the end of the war the family came back to Formia. The churches were destroyed or damaged. In Saint Teresa the Angels playing music fresco that the artist painted for the chapel of Our Lady of Pompeii ended up in fragments, while two ovals depicting Pope Leo XIII and Blessed Bartolo Longo are found in the rubble. The search for new customers for the altar, replacing the ones destroyed, it is not easy for both the difficult economic situation and the clergy that requires religious representations in line with the traditional iconography, which the artist agrees not to foreclose future commissions. The artistic maturity When Antonio Sicurezza can finally express himself more freely, he has artistically valuable results, such as the works of the apse of St. John, St. Albina in the church of Saint Erasmus, and then, above all, the St. Francis and the Announced at Our Lady of Caramel and San Roque in Pico. It is valuable to note that in the landscape behind the figures the painter represents in a deliberately simple manner, so that the faithful can recognize immediately the local sights and monuments, as in St. Albina and in St. Francis, in which it is particularly significant the view of the large Gaeta gulf. In the summer he works outside to paint landscapes and alleys, while during the rest of year he works mainly with charcoal and watercolors or tempera. He produces sketches and studies for works commissioned by religious or paints still lives depicting with immediacy and lightness, but not fulfilling his desire to build the representation in the atmosphere and placing it in the light. After the summer of 1965 he left teaching and set up the large study that, among carob trees and prickly pears, he had built on the land of Santa Maria la Noce. It is now easier to prepare sketches and large cartoons for religious works and then - limiting the charcoal and pastel studies - he can systematically focus on oil painting, especially of the human figure and still life. In fact the style change, which makes him prefer oil painting and sees the use of systematic and almost exclusive spatula instead of a brush, occurs in the late Fifties. Part of the paintings exhibited in Rome in July 1961, including two paintings that were awarded to the contemporary art exhibition held in Turin in the context of the events of Italy '61, already put in evidence the use of the trowel to illustrate the human figure and objects. In the following years he devoted a greater commitment to personal and collective exhibitions, with a lack of direction, without referring to a gallery or an agent and tied to a provincial reality. Despite this, there are several distinctions and awards, and news about him with reproductions of his works are found in various catalogs of contemporary artists. The intensive production in the last years With the advancing age, Antonio Sicurezza and his wife moved to the center of Formia. The last house is more chaotic for the desire of finding the proper window light for each painting. Yet, despite his age and disorder, the work is intense. To complete a painting he takes around five sessions, which means at least two new works every week. He works both mornings and afternoons, often devoting first energies to harder works as the naked human figures. In the living room the walls are covered with framed paintings, while others are simply placed in the corners. It is here that are received friends and admirers. It is of this period the groups of young people with musical instruments that the artist calls concerts, many nudes, vigorous still lives and some outside scenes. Exceptionally, in August 1978 Antonio Sicurezza does not go to Santa Maria Capua Vetere for the annual meeting of the Assumption. It is the beginning of the sickness that, a year later, August 29, 1979, will bring to die at the age of 74 years. Critical Analysis The poetics of painting by Antonio Sicurezza is of course based on values indispensable for him: the respect of human dignity and the sacredness of work. The artist continued to explore and experiment with constant application for many years to reach its capacity of synthesis in painting. His style reaches maturity based on two fundamental elements: the physical construction of the subject, with increasing use of the spatula to distribute and overlay color, and the mention of the deliberately unfinished around the main theme. The result of all this is a subjective realism. Through the filter of the artist, the performance is careful and accurate for its main theme and the parties to which are assigned a significant role. The same performance is tempered and sometimes only mentioned in the rest of the composition. Two other considerations must be made: color and atmosphere. Sicurezza manifests for the color a particular passion and he accepts difficult challenges. The atmosphere should be clarified as a physical fact: the atmosphere of the corner of the world where the painter lived and characterized by an extraordinary transparency and brightness, and in which the subjects of his paintings systematically lie, receiving security and serenity. Antonio Sicurezza, in a century that profoundly transforms reality, puts himself stubbornly in the vein of realism. The artist, at once humble and stubborn, finds the formula of expression in ancient heritage but with original and modern execution. "The result reached by Antonio Sicurezza is the result of his research, where the responsiveness of more accurate technical means resolves the discovery of the deeper meaning of reality. Therefore, an understanding that surpasses all interpretations animates his painting, to respect it in its entirety. For this reason, in its naked flesh, the more flesh it is, the more chaste"(Luigi Volpicelli). Elio Marciano for the female nude observes that "the earthly reality of the fine figures of young girls is filled with love of classical perfection of chaste nudity." Guido Bernardi instead puts its focus on humble objects represented in the paintings of the painter, who, "with a wonderful insight figured object, is able to convey continuous points of joy and reflection". Mario Lepore ascribes to the works of Antonio Sicurezza "the solidity of a job not only well known but also rich in resources and, most importantly, that shows a genuine temperament, from the narrative paintings skills. The quality of design and composition, sensitivity to color and light, reality probate but also poetically observed, often allow him to achieve beautiful accents". Other critical interventions are often united by a thin thread that identifies values early in the artist and natural attachment to popular traditions, moral honesty, humility and frank simplicity. References * Sicurezza, Antonio and Casalnuovo, Grimaldo, Colori e poesia, 1961, Atena Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/ ", Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ==--==--==
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