Art Institute of Udine
Art Institute of Udine
   
 
He obtains a post, based on qualifications, at the Institute of Art in Udine, and moves with his family to Tarcento. Within him the brooding bitterness of separation, and undoubtedly the obsessive role of one who feels rejected was growing bigger in his mind . In Venice he was to keep more friends and admirers that he was prepared to admit. The gallery Il Traghetto never refused him a one–man show. Diego Valeri, then the President of Bevilacqua La Masa, not only encouraged him to hold exhibitions in the rooms of the foundation, but would speak with affection and conviction at his exhibitions in Friuli. And many others. The only absentees, with a few precious exceptions, were the critics of his area.
But Lucatello was to fall in love with Friuli, this peripheral land still so little understood, tthis jewel almost excluded from the great itineraries of holidaymakers. On his moped – he was to pass his driving test only at the age of fifty – he becomes drunk with emotion riding for hours and hours along the dusty roads which stretch over wooded hills, discovers with amazement and joy the architecture of an intense green, that was sober, dry and essential, and then goes down to discover the incredible lights of the pebbly river Tagliamento.
Of a sociable nature, always ready to crack a joke, he soon makes friends with the paesants he meets in the taverns, or when he goes to drink red wine in the shady osterie deep in the country. Not only are these casual encounters, but with many of them he establishes relationships that are to last for ever.
He plays bowls with them, but above all billiards, and takes part in tournaments, or he plays cards or chats about politics. They accept him without reservations, these Friuli people who usually are rather reticent with strangers, and they even confide in him. They tell him difficult stories in front of a glass, often told in a poetic vein, always with the irony of one who of life has felt the heavy hand.
For him they are all part of this land of Friuli, that he is learning to know better and better, and the relationship man–nature is taking clearer shape in his bright landscapes. He has a studio in Billerio, a wonderful hill, drastically alien to the fetters of town.

 

 


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