Studio: international art (77.1919)

STUDIO-TALK

WAR DRAWING
BY ROMANO DAZZI

muscle is revealed : but men, and the
movements and expressions and gestures
of men, absorb him yet more ; and, as is
natural, in these latter years it has been
upon the soldiers before all others that his
keen, attentive eyes have been set. 0
Although Rome is so far from the war
zone—from the bleak Carso and the Taglia-
mento and Isonzo—few could have had a
more vivid impression of the fighters and
the scenes of their fighting than that small
Roman boy with his gay blue eyes and
sailor suit. He dreamed of war, read of
it in the papers, listened to the accounts
of it from those who returned from the
front; followed soldiers about the streets,
noting their uniforms, their gestures, their
movements ; and, above all, he saw it in
the kinematograph. There in the darkened
hall, little Romano would sit, eager, intense,
alert, drinking in with his keen eyes every
movement, every look and gesture, every
detail of the uniform and equipment of the
various troops; and then race home to
set down, not the literal sights which he
had seen, but his impressions from them,
the record of some emotion which had
been awakened—it might be but one
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figure, one expression, one gesture. He
would draw by night in bed and fall
asleep drawing; and, awakening next morn-
ing with the papers all around him, seize
the pencil and begin again : keen, spirited,
tragic drawings, full of swiftness, boldness,
impetuosity; remarkable expressions of
the very spirit of those splendid Italian
troops both in life and in death. 0 0

Since Signor Ojetti first, by his illus-
trated article in the “ Illustrazione Italiana,"
brought the work of Romano Dazzi before
the public a year ago, another article has
been published in the same journal by
Signor Antonio Baldini, with further
examples ; and an exhibition has just been
held in Rome, at the Galleria Bragaglia
(21 Via Condotta), a “ Casa d’Arte ” where
personal exhibitions are organized by Signor
Bragaglia solely in the service of art. 0
It is remarkable work for a boy of four-
teen, which is Romano's present age ; but
there is, happily for himself, nothing of the
“ infant prodigy ” about young Dazzi. He
is a jolly, hearty, healthy boy, full of fun
and mischief; unusual in nothing save in his
extraordinary skill with a pencil, his passion
for drawing at all hours of the day or night.