Norberto the painter of the little monks

Norberto was born in the close knit and charming hamlet of  Spello, with its fairytale-like collection of  ancient stone houses that he went on to immortalise in most of his paintings: paintings that were set in delightful mediaeval villages framed by the sky and countryside.   Luigi Proietti, known as Norberto, was born here in Spello in 1927. And it could only be in a place such as this that one of the most famous painters of naive art could be born: he is now world famous for his works that contain dozens of industrious “little monks”.

His story is a fascinating tale of a man of  humble origins whose creative talents bring him to great fame.  Norberto was born into a working class family: his father was an agent in the livestock trade who also sold olives and grain and at the same time, he managed a modest trattoria.  His mother helped out in the trattoria and was also a dressmaker of outfits for first communions. With a large family of five children to support, these small jobs  were necessary and such were the needs of the family, that Norberto, when still an adolescent, was sent to his uncle in Trastevere, a district of Rome, where he  learnt the art of tailoring.  He returned to Spello in 1951 and opened his own tailor’s shop but story has it that  after a short time, his passion for design took a new direction and he started to sketch figures with the points of his scissors: in time this developed into something more concrete.  And from the seeds of fortune, a whole new road was opened: that of art. By chance, one day Norberto found himself on this road as he was playing with and moulding a piece of plaster that a workman had left behind.  He went on to carving and colouring it, and thus was  revealed his talent for a technical expressivity all his own. Norberto subsequently embraced this art form with such passion that ten years later, in  1961, it became his life’s work.  In 1962 he held an exhibition in  Luxembourg and shortly after he was fully consecrated into the world of art by his presence at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto.

Norberto’s art is set within the naive style and the major promoter of this movement,  Cesare Zavattini, became the strongest supporter of  Norberto’s work. Zavettini  campaigned to have the artist receive the National Oscar for Naive Art, the Suzzarra Prize, in 1971. The label “naïve” does not entirely do justice to Norberto’s style, however, and it is actually preferable to refer to it as a complex form which draws on the traditions of the primitive style, above all during the initial stages.  One thing remains clear, that labelling the art of  Norberto is a world still to be discovered.

A landscape of sweet hills, of soft and soothing hues,so near to the Umbrian spirit that it is impossible not to be moved by its spiritual rapture. Norberto has the capacity to tell the story of a small world, of busy monks within an almost metaphysical mediaeval world, of a place suspended in time that is neither historical nor philological but which is actually all about the condition of the soul. The cheerful scenes of these landscapes concentrate on the harmonious cohabitation of two worlds: the world of town life and that of the country, thus creating a sublime “other-worldly” place.  The stylistic trademark that has particularly characterised the artist and made him famous throughout the world, is the use of his “little monks”.  Tiny, overactive figures that fill the paintings like busy little bees tell of a world of prayer and work, of contact with nature and manual work. Norberto’s passion for the little monks grew out of his admiration for Saint Francis of Assisi who was the artist’s moral and intellectual inspiration, appreciated for his ability to intertwine the intimate beauty of things with the creator, animals and nature in all its complexity. The simplicity of the monks that inhabit a dimension of daily life, work and devotion evokes the fairytale of a world finally reduced to human proportions, of a world in which we are obliged to feel reconciled with ourselves.

Norberto died in his adored village,  Spello, on  9 agosto del 2009.

In  Spello,  Norberto has a museum dedicated to his works,  Il Museo Norberto which houses many of his works and a gallery of various other works.

Galleria Luigi Proietti- Museo Norberto
Via Cavour, 61
006038 SPELLO
Tel.+39.0742-652044