The pasteboard for The delivery of the keys to St. Peter – property of the Carrara Academy in Bergamo – was restored and given on deposit to the Diotti Museum in 2013; the other three pasteboards of the Cremona Cathedral’s series of frescoes are still waiting to be restored.
Diotti expressed his best while working on pasteboards rather than on frescoes. Diotti wanted to stress the importance of preparatory drawings to declare the irreplaceable role of the Carrara Academy as guarantor of a correct artistic training.
Charcoal carefully shaded, light spots resulting from chalk and white lead called “biacca”, red charcoal called “rossetto” to warm someone’s complexion: the drawing is detailed “to the end”, almost becoming a monochrome painting. As Germani stated: “No correction, no repentance was given from Diotti to the act of painting. Before starting, he wanted to be sure of what he was going to do. About the pasteboard, he used to say that to finish a pasteboard was like having finished half the painting”.
The painter achieved his stylistic highness gradually, using the scholastic precepts, imposing discipline on his hand and on his mind while painting. Diotti soon left the expressive sketches and came to the supreme and chastised composure that identifies his technique, but that, towards the end of his career, he himself perceived as outdated and that was revalued only in recent times.
Once the preparatory pasteboards had accomplished their function of construction material, Diotti decided to gather and preserve them all to donate them to his school as models, becoming the pride of the author and of the Academy he led. Diotti was aware that his drawings would be mistreated by the students. Nevertheless, he was sure that his pasteboards would be “the most important and sturdy root of my teaching method”.
Loan from Accademia Carrara - Bergamo
