Donnino Rumi
    ... Painter ...

    No Title, cm 100x60] [Self Portrait, cm 150x100] However, late nineteenth century France is not the only historical period to which we must refer, as this would be a mistake. Viewing his pictures, almost as a bird flying over a landscape, another great art <<period>> catches the eye - that of the seventeenth century.
    Rumi, going back in time, in his search for ideal sources, discovers, at least it seems to me, Frans Hals, the Dutch painter, who paints in the style of a swordsman, ready to seize, in a moment, an expression, a gesture and reproduce it with the maximum synthesis. It is sufficient to look at the Self-portrait of 1963, which seems to have come from a member of that Dutch Guild, now immortalised in museum of Haarlem.
    Rumi uses the same alternation of light and dark and even of black and white which plays so arrogantly with the light. It is however precisely the spontaneity of an action or gesture that Rumi, like Hals, wishes to capture is for this reason that he turns to other seventeenth century painters from the spanish, such as Velasquez to the italians such as Guercino or, even better, Luca Giordano.
    [No Title, cm 65x50] [Autoritratto, cm 100x90] It seems to me that even the choice of clothes, in their theatrical dimension, confirms this leaning towards the 1600s. In this Rumi, who himself liked to pose as an actor (the splendid Self-portrait of 1974, so intens and so full of pathos) also reveals to us his psycology and his position in relation to life. A position that is essentially seventeenth century. Life is a play, a performance, in which there is amazement and bitterness. A gesture is used to fake, to mask. A quick sharp glance is given at things that pass fleetingly, that escape. Everything is ephemeral and it is as if a painting tries to capture a passing moment. Life is where truth is fictituous and is translated into symbols and emblems. It is here that one touches the seventeenth century esistential position i.e. the Baroque. Behind all this is the sublime tragedy of Shakespeare.
    Yet what of today, of the present time? Always through quick initial impression, it is now his moderness that stands out. His capacity to observe contemporary events and happenings and to take from these what suits him. Cezanne's influence is evident. It can be seen above all in some of his landscapes but also in some of his still lives. These reveal a building up of mass in accordance with his need to consolidate and organize.
    [Still Life, cm 90x70] [No Title, cm 70x90] While he was very confident of his sabre like strokes with a brush, he was at the same time fearful of breaking up the form and loosing the thread of the picture and it was for this that he logically turned to Cezanne.
    Probing still deeper into his work, one finds a profund awareness of the post - war abstract movement. Particularly from Boccioni, from whom certain structuraldynamic motives are re-given to us, to the abstract artists of the 1950's and later. There is an excitement and movement of gesture that ends up giving us a delightful freedom of expression and spontaneity.
    [No Title, cm 70x90] [No Title, cm 60x80] Actually Rumi had learnt to produce an exceptional transparency. His method was, starting from black, to superimpose, until the mysterious f:dters of light were discovered. This process, that produces a light that shocks, gives a sense of depth and his pictures, quivering and vibrating, have a three dimensional effect that seems to spring from the depth of the canvas. Even certain hard marks, like the piercing reds which liven a number of his pictures, loose their flatness, becoming vibrant and alive.
    his process of decantation was a contemporary lesson that Rumi was able to assimilate perfectly. Yet he remained throughout always himself, never taking from any one artist a literal stylistic form. ....

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