Female character

Ghizzardi was born in the province of Mantua, not far from the places where one of the most important naive artists of the twentieth century lived: Antonio Ligabue, almost twenty years older. For both, an expressive and almost violent force is the cornerstone of their capacity for representation. Both love the portrait, which becomes an almost obsessive theme for Ghizzardi. Lesser so, the Viadana native has an intense range of colors, which in him wane into grayish or brown tones. In addition, he demonstrates his creative abilities in other arts, including sculpture and literature, especially his remarkable autobiography: "Mi richordo anchora". For almost all his life, Ghizzardi paints bizarre faces of countryside characters, who are friends, provocative women, and passers-by. In this way he transforms these people into as many idols, who sometimes seem the puppets of some ancestral religion. The lady represented here has an unforgettable wickedness in her eyes. Her feline eyes fail to redeem a physiognomy endowed with a helpless provincial sadness. If the painter seems to almost voluntarily disavow the means of his style, oversimplifying his creations, he nevertheless demonstrates an expressive capacity to destroy every daily banality, to arrive at an impeccable description of the human soul.