The greetings – Zoica (1964) cm 80×120 – Tempera su tela

Between 1963 and 1964 Dady Orsi performs one of his most interesting series, Le Menine, in which he continues in his own way the variations on the theme of the Meninas of Velazquez (1656) performed by Picasso in 1957. Here the artist takes his cue from the distorted and deliberately childlike style of the Malaga painter, but adds stylistic elements and a narrative that are his own. At this point in his career, Orsi is a mature artist who is going through a crucial moment in his research. In the Milan of the time, his fellow artists were in fact moving either towards abstractionism or towards a calm neo-realism. Considering both paths unsatisfactory, Orsi prefers to look at Picasso’s deformation and Giacometti’s drained synthesis as the way to go in order to arrive at a figuration that is truly his. Greeting depicts four young girls on a beach, dressed in improbable seventeenth-century costumes, waving their handkerchiefs toward an aviator flying away in his biplane (a wish for a good trip or farewell?). The date 20.1.64 affixed to the painting began to be jokingly read as ZOICA by Andrea, the artist’s son, and in time ended up becoming the nickname used in private. Although this canvas is one of the most complete works in the series, its workmanship reveals a characteristic common to all the Menine: an appearance, if not unfinished, at least not definitive. Unfinished contours, conspicuous afterthoughts, coruscating brushstrokes, and spaces of canvas left uncovered. Among the many variations, it emerges as the most original and monumental result. Here the freedom of the drawing, the luminosity of the blues and the windy lightness of the atmosphere give the scene a special flavor.