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C A R N E L I A N I S S U E • n° 2 1
CARNELIAN
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65 m Life Saga The Italian Sea Gro
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ISSUE - n° 21 - 2020 - € 10
The Art of Sailing
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[ ART ON BOARD ]
CUTTING EDGE LIGHT Seventy works on show at the Castello Visconteo in Novara mark the rediscovery of Divisionism, the forerunner of modern Italian painting and a movement that laid the foundations for the Futurist avant garde by Micaela Zucconi
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Opening: Emilio Longoni, Bambino con cavallino e trombetta, 1893-1896, oil on canvas fixed to card; to side, Angelo Morbelli, Meditazione, 1913, oil on canvas; below, Emilio Longoni, Ragazzina col gatto, 1893-1896, oil on board. This page: top, Gaetano Previati, La migrazione in val padana, 1916, 1917, oil on canvas, Enel Roma. Above, Angelo Morbelli, Neve, 1909, oil on canvas. Right, Giovanni Segantini, Dopo il temporale, 1883-1885
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n 1891 a group of young artists, Giovanni Segantini, Giuseppe
Visconteo in Novara until 5 April 2020, and also includes many works
Pellizza da Volpedo, Angelo Morbelli, Emilio Longoni and Gaetano
that are usually not available for public viewing as they belong to private
Previati exhibited a series of their works carried out using the new
collections. In 2016 Rovereto’s Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
“pittura divisa” technique at the First Brera Triennale in Milan. There
(Mart) also dedicated a show to the movement, which played an
were only six canvases, displayed in different rooms, out of a total
important role in Italy’s artistic renewal in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
of 600 works by 225 artists, but this was the official introduction of
The featured artists, active above all in Lombardy and Piedmont (but
Divisionism, a movement that broke with academic tradition.
also in Tuscany and Genoa), were the children of a period of artistic
The exhibition entitled “Divisionismo. La rivoluzione della luce”
experimentation. In France, for example, the Pointillism – thousands of
(Divisionism. A revolution in light) highlights what curator Annie-Paule
dots of pure colour placed side by side – of post-Impressionists George
Quinsac describes as the first Italian avant garde. It is on at the Castello
Seurat and Paul Signac deconstructed light by drawing inspiration
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[ ART ON BOARD ]
from contemporary research into optics. Italian Divisionism, however, although also influenced by this research, grew out of the environment of the Milanese Scapigliatura (The “dishevelled ones”) and the lessons of the Macchiaioli painters (“macchie” means patches or spots) Giovanni Fattori and Cesare Tallone. Unlike their French counterparts, the Italian Divisionists applied long and short strokes to the canvas, irregular filaments that lay side by side or overlapped, replacing the technique of impasto painting. “I almost immediately realised that you could
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not create light or air by mixing colours on the palette. I found a way
themes (Pellizza da Volpedo). Brothers Alberto and Vittore Grubecy
to arrange them with honesty and purity, placing them side by side
De Dragon promoted the movement abroad, building a network of
on the canvas”, wrote Giovanni Segantini. He used this technique to
connections with their art gallery in Milan, even after they had split
create “more light, air and truth”, interpreted through different content
following a difference of opinion. Alberto took care of the gallery while
and meaning from those underlying French Pointillism. The Italian
Vittore continued his work as art critic and painter. Among these artists
artists’ work displays a deep sense of nature (Segantini), suggestions of
it was Segantini above all who found an outlet for his work outside
Symbolism and a spiritual touch (Previati) and the appearance of social
Italy through his contacts with the artists of the Viennese Secession, a
Above, Emilio Longoni, L’oratore dello sciopero, 18901891, oil on canvas. Right, from top: Giuseppe Pellizza, La processione, 1893-1895, oil on canvas, National Museum of Science and Technology, Milan. Giovanni Segantini, Savognino sotto la neve, 1890, oil on canvas. Giovanni Sottocornola, Fuori Porta, 1891, oil on canvas. Left-hand page: top, Gaetano Previati, Maternità, 1890, 1891, oil on canvas. Below, left, Vittore Grubicy, Quando gli uccelletti vanno a dormire, 1891, 1903, oil on canvas, Pinacoteca di Tortona. Below, right, Giuseppe Pellizza, Le ciliegie, c.1888-1889, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria.
group of which he was an early member. His works had been exhibited
of Divisionism were a basis for Futurist painting. Umberto Boccioni,
in Vienna before, and had met with great acclaim. After a memorable
Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini and Giacomo Balla (who
posthumous exhibition, in 1901 the Austrian government dedicated a
had studied with Pellizza da Volpedo in Turin) formed the nucleus of
monograph to him, written by Franz Servaes and translated into Italian
Futurist painters that coalesced around Tommaso Marinetti in 1910, and
in 2015. The Divisionist period ended with the passing of its final
they were the heirs to the techniques and ideas of Divisionism, although
representatives a century ago, in 1919 and 1920. Segantini had passed
these were subsequently rejected, especially by Boccioni, in the search to
away in 1899 at the age of forty-one, and Pellizza da Volpedo committed
represent the speed and movement of modern life. However, the work of
suicide at the age of thirty-nine in 1907. The dynamic brushstrokes
the Divisionists shaped the origins of modern Italian painting.
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