Biographical path of Tonino Gottarelli

Taking a panoramic leap over the hills and looking down from above, a small town known for its racetrack opens up before our eyes: Imola.

Here, in a small alley in the centre of Imola, the writer and painter Tonino Gottarelli was born in 1920, the second of the three children of Lodovico and Irene Galassi.

This Brullo alley will leave a deep mark on his way of life as he is educated, before elementary school, by a strange gentleman who lives in the same street and who spends his days teaching the children, the youngest of the neighborhood. His entire childhood receives a particular direction towards a strong and passionate way of life, which does not weaken his sensitivity.

He attended the Regio Ginnasio B. Rambaldi in Imola with excellent results; then, he graduated in philosophy at the University of Urbino, discussing the thesis " Aspects of the epistemological problem ".

He began teaching, a troubled period in Gottarelli's life: first as a history and geography teacher in middle school, until his interest shifted to childhood psychology and he taught as an elementary school teacher in the most disparate places in the Imola area. And so... in 1950 we find him near Imola, in Tossignano where he taught for 2 years, while shortly after he was in the elementary school in Riviera for 4 years.

In 1956/57, Gottarelli was transferred to Pieve di Gesso and taught here for 2 years.

Later, in 1959, he was transferred again to an elementary school in Croara where he remained for another two years.

But his sensitivity and literary nature do not abandon him, at most they are accentuated by gaining a deep knowledge of children's drawing from teaching.

In this regard Gottarelli writes: “…the world of children is extraordinarily interesting and, forgive the rhetorical term, “instructive” for an artist ”.

From a literary point of view, at the age of twenty, Gottarelli wrote the novel L' Ideale , which was published during his military service in Parma, in 1942.

A year later, in the infantry barracks at the Moncenisio pass, where he served as a second lieutenant, he wrote a book of short stories, Il gioco del solitario , published in Imola.

Not even the war distracted him from his passion for philosophy.

Then, increasingly developing his poetic beliefs, he began to paint around the 1950s.

Immediately after, in 1953, he revealed his intimate essence with a collection of poems, La pioggia in città and the following year Dove abita io , therefore, E di alberi non si è detto ancora niente .

She writes and paints continuously while frequenting the best galleries in Italy with her six-year-old daughter, where the little girl, named Grazia, exhibits her works.

It is during this period that he chose to isolate himself and live only in the countryside. His poetic talent was discovered in 1960 by the literary critic Giacinto Spagnoletti, who as president of the jury of the Cervia Prize together with Giuseppe Ungaretti, proclaimed him the winner.

In the motivation for the Prize, Spagnoletti says, about his verses: " they are almost angry notes dictated by a stenographic desperation, intertwined with implacable fixations in a discourse now poetically resolved in violent underlinings on the reasons for a total freedom, no longer postponable ."

From Bologna, where he lived in Via Senza Nome, Gottarelli moved again and from 1965 to 1967 he lived in a house along the banks of the Sillaro, near Castel San Pietro Terme (BO).

Here he wrote the poem Il paese del diavolo (The Devil's Country ), never published. In 1967 he lived in Ozzano dell'Emilia, and taught in the Imola hamlet of Zelo.

Two years later, he published the collection of poems “ Pomeriggio degli opinioni ”. The acquaintance and friendship with Spagnoletti continued, and the very important literary critic later presented, with a committed introduction, the book of poems entitled “ La bambina e la Rivoluzione ”, published in 1971.

As regards his pictorial activity, his first personal exhibition dates back to 1960, held in Faenza (RA), which was followed in 1966 in Paris by a review which was the result of his maturation and which earned him an invitation to the “ Salon de Mai ” in Paris.

His love for nature leads him to move again, without respite, from one house to another, until he stops in the area of ​​Pediano (Imola) and here he remains for about fifteen years, in a very isolated house, where he tries to breed horses, and it is during this period that the novel L'amore al lentotore is published.

From here, in 1977 he moved again, to a house without electricity or gas, in Vallette, in Via Valsellustra, an area located at the western edge of Romagna, today divided between three municipalities: Imola, Casalfiumanese, Dozza.

Here he lives in proverbial isolation and here he dedicates himself totally, even though he began a long time before, to writing in the form of a diary, a collection of philosophical-love letters, which he will publish in late 1981 with the title “ Useless Letters ”.

The writing of the book has occupied Gottarelli for about ten years. In this context, his thought and his prose acquire a new depth; his passions find in this prose the echo of an existential dimension with a strong depth and continuous tension of the states of mind.

We are therefore in 1981, the year in which Gottarelli moved permanently from the Imola countryside to the city and in particular to via Spaventa at no. 5, where he remained until his death.

Although he lives not far from the center of Imola, his thoughts and his poetry are not disturbed, on the contrary, they acquire an interiority that moves him from his impressionist dimension.

Tonino Gottarelli, carries forward this artistic ambivalence of writing and painting with the same fervor and obtains very important results in both fields and it can be said that his poetry is a "speaking painting" and his painting is a "silent poetry".

In 1986 we see Gottarelli as the protagonist of the film “ Stories of Women ” in the role of a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, directed by Donatella Raffai, filmed for RAI-TV. Three years later, in 1989, the splendid collection of poems Vita di un'idea will be released, with which he wins the first Lions Club prize in Milan.

This will be followed by Riassunto del cielo, a book full of walks and metaphysical questions, and Pensieri in prospettive , a work that does not betray Gottarelli's passion which gradually turns towards everything that is meditative thought, as well as towards the great problems of human society.

In 1995 the volume Musa a domicilio was published, a work that captures the contemplative spirit of someone who still knows how to "feel" and "see" with his eyes; but his newfound wisdom makes him increasingly isolated.

We find him in his now customary solitude writing and painting his most important works, immersed in intense but always conscious research.

In the meantime, he holds many exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

Not to be overlooked is his act of generosity towards his city, to which he has always been extremely attached, that of having created in 2002 the Fondazione Centro Studi which bears his name and whose task and aim is to bear witness to his poetic and pictorial journey.

And here I want to give voice to Thomas Mann, who writes in Death in Venice : “…it is certainly a good thing that the world knows only the beautiful work, but not its origins, the circumstances of its birth; because the knowledge of the sources from which the inspiration sprang would disturb it, fill it with dismay, nullify the influences of the Egregio!”. Which means that it is better not to know too much about an artist's life.

Tonino Gottarelli passed away in Imola on February 20, 2007.

Mariana Campean