“It is the light of Grizzana!” exclaims Morandi, to say that it is in this light that he discovered his new shade of blue, a blue never seen before. (1963)

These words, so simple yet profoundly evocative, encapsulate the poetic quest of Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), the “painter of the soul,” who shunned worldliness to embrace the silent beauty of common things. His art, as much as his life, was a hymn to essentiality, a quest for harmony in the simplest forms that led him to develop a deep connection with the world around him. An intimate and at the same time enveloping bond, which manifested itself predominantly in his chosen place, Grizzana, a small village nestled among the valleys of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, a short distance from his Bolognese home at Via Fondazza 36.