Pietro Annigoni: Struggles

"Juanita" by Pietro Annigoni

"At ten began the most miserable period of my life. I was sent to a new school and from the start was unpopular with the other boys and with the masters. This hell lasted nearly three years, during which my whole personality changed. From being a daring and adventurous boy, I became timid and developed an inferiority complex that - and this may surprise all but my close friends - has stayed with me all my life. 

Hating school as I did, I drew even closer to my father, unconsciously looking for protection. He was still giving me drawing lessons and that, in turn, gave him a renewed enthusiasm for drawing himself. He made portraits of my brother Giovanni, and me, that seemed to me so good that I strove still harder to equal his skill as a draughtsman. Sometimes he would read to us from his favourite books and talk to us about them as though we were his equals. In that way, inevitably, we absorbed most of his ideas, including his hatred of the Church.

Ironically, my nickname at that time was 'Canonicus,' a holy-sounding name inspired first because I was a heavily-built and serious child, and second because I lived in the Via Canonica. Then, and for many years afterwards, I signed my drawings 'Canonicus.' Later, it gave way to the cipher which I still use today, a 'C' followed by three crosses representing the Via Crucis - the hard Road to the Cross which the artist has to travel.

I believe that (in spite of being the son of rabid anti-clericals) the longing for a certain and revealed faith in the Divine has deep roots in my spirit and determines one of its essential, if contradictory, traits, which does not fail to be reflected in my actions as man and artist. On the other hand, the spiritual anarchy of our time often arouses in me a furious sense of rebellion that tends to reinforce this longing, which is above all, the, the nostalgia of one who is not in accord with the epoch and the society to which he belongs." 

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)