Lido Bettarini

LIDO BETTARINI

Lido Bettarini was born in Florence in the 1927. He's an Italian Artist, who now lives and works in Cannes, in the South of France, where he continues to paint. The influence of a city like Florence brought him to follow an artistic career. He attended the Fine Arts Academy of Florence (Accademia di Belle Arti) and studied first with the professor Settala and then with the painter Rosai.

Bettarini is one of the most important Italian artists, very required and appreciated in the artistic scene of Italy and Europe; he’s had also the honour to work for the pope John Paul II, painting for him a beautiful portrait now conserved in the Vaticano. Beyond his activity as a painter, Bettarini has writen also different books, both novels and essays.

Many of his artworks are part of important collections and are conserved in museums like Vatican Museum, Prado Museum of Madrid, Museum of Modern Art of Montecatini. The most peculiar thing that characterizes the great and vast works of Bettarini are his landscape. The inspiration for these canvases is taken obviously from the beautiful and colourful region of Tuscany, and from the dreamy atmospheres of the Mediterranean Sea. The colours and the vibrant beauty, rustic and dreamy at the same time, of the countryside near Florence is described by Bettarini in a way that only a Tuscan artist can do. Another important theme in Bettarini’s paintings is the “White Sails”, boats that sail home guided only by the moon light. A magic atmosphere, surrounding the port and the boats, is given by the use of the shades of tones, blues, violets and the white, and suspends the time and the space in a condition that seems unreal even if everything we see is “realistic”.