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EXHIBITIONS

Giovanni Fattori Padua

by SIMONETTA FRAQUELLI

GIOVANNI FATTORI’S ARTISTIC reputation is unquestioned in ; however, his art is woe- fully unfamiliar to a British audience. Fattori (1825–1908) was the leading member of the , an avant-garde group of painters active in between c.1855 and 1870, who sought to break away from academic painting and who were united in their progres- sive political views and patriotic sentiments. Their name, originally applied disparagingly in the Florentine press in 1862, refers to their 87. French soldiers of ’59, by Giovanni Fattori. c.1859. Panel, 15.5 by 32 cm. (Istituto Matteucci, Viareggio; exh. innovative technique of applying paint in an Palazzo Zabarella, Padua). arrangement of overlapping macchie (spots or patches) to replace the structure provided fascination with military themes, and led to By the 1870s Fattori’s desire to faithfully by drawing. his monumental – if less macchia in style – record contemporary events in his revolu- The exhibition presented at the Palazzo Risorgimento battles scenes such as The Italian tionary style gave way to more introspective Zabarella, Padua (to 28th March),1 aims to camp during the Battle of Magenta, represented in interpretations. In his Sentries: the white wall (on go beyond the common perception of Fattori the exhibition with a version dating from 1862 lookout) (no.60; Fig.88), the stark composi- as a Macchiaiolo pure and simple. It opens (no.10). In 1860 Fattori’s design had won the tion, with the diagonal white wall juxtaposed with his work of the late 1850s (with the competition set up by the Ricasoli govern- with the sun-bleached road, gives the image exception of his self-portrait of 1854) when ment, for which entrants had to depict a scene an almost abstract quality and suggests a sense Fattori was well into his thirties, and excludes related to the Second War of Independence of the alienation combined with the fearful his earlier Romantic history paintings. How- of 1859.2 Unlike his fellow Macchiaioli, Fat- anticipation of the lone sentry in the fore- ever, with about one hundred paintings, tori did not participate in any of the military ground. Reduced to large patches of black including several of his best known, and a expeditions, although he painted militia scenes and white with striations of azure and violet in handful of his etchings, which occupied much more consistently than the others – even long the sky, this is a masterful demonstration of of his time in the latter decades of his life, it is after the Unification of Italy had been com- the macchia technique. By the time Fattori the largest exhibition of his work to be pleted. His lack of participation in the battles returned to the theme of war in earnest in mounted since his major retrospective of 1987 may account for the fact that his scenes are the late 1870s, his motivation had shifted yet at the in Florence, the primary divested of the heroic grandeur of war; instead again. No doubt disillusioned with the failure public repository of Fattori’s art in Italy. The they often depict the immediate aftermath – of the Risorgimento to provide the political presentation is broadly chronological, and it even of battles in which his side lost – showing and social change he and other patriots had covers the three main areas of his production: wounded or dead soldiers strewn on the hoped for, Fattori chose to highlight the military scenes relating to the Risorgimento ground. In the Battle of Magenta painting, barbaric aspects of battle; in his harrowing for which he was best known during his Fattori chose to emphasise the humanitarian Caught by the stirrup (c.1879; no.71), a soldier lifetime, landscapes and scenes of everyday aspects of war, where nuns enter the field is dragged to death by his horse, a tragic victim life in the Tuscan countryside and portraits, on horse-drawn carts to tend to the injured of events beyond his control. Here the tech- mainly of family members and close friends. soldiers.3 Unsentimental and unembellished, nique is no longer macchia-like, and the Fattori’s first experiments with the macchia but not without sensitivity, Fattori’s battle subject has more in common with Goya’s technique can be seen in his small-scale dispas- scenes of the early 1860s constitute the first etchings of the Disasters of War. sionate studies, such as that of French soldiers credible images of war reportage. These works Fattori is perhaps at his most innovative encamped in the Parco delle Cascine in Flor - have a cinematic quality which, some one when employing small horizontal panels, ence in 1859 (cat. no.4; Fig.87). A dramatic hundred years later, influenced Luchino Vis- often using the sides of old wooden boxes of shift from academic history painting, these conti in his treatment of the military scenes in the Havana and Trabuco cigars he used to arresting works inaugurated Fattori’s lifelong his audacious film Senso (1954).4 smoke. As if seen through a wide-angled lens,

86. The Palmieri terrace at , by Giovanni Fattori. 1866. Panel, 12 by 35 cm. (Galleria d’arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti, Florence; exh. Palazzo Zabarella, Padua).

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EXHIBITIONS

Some judicious pruning would have avoided much repetition – especially with regard to his landscapes and some of the smaller panel sketches. Also, the chronological hang, while having the advantage of showing how Fattori returned to the same themes throughout his career and providing a context within which to place his portraiture – which, apart from some notable exceptions, such as the Portrait of the stepdaughter (1889; no.88), is the weakest aspect of his œuvre – diminished the intensity 88. Sentries: the white wall of the presentation. Instead, more precise (on look-out), by Giovanni thematic clusters could have given each area Fattori. c.1874. Canvas, 37 by 56 cm. of his work more potency and perhaps have (Fondazione Progetto revealed more about his artistic development Marzotto; exh. Palazzo and the social and political motivations that Zabarella, Padua). underpin his work.

these formats emphasise the vastness of the posed. Indeed, the peasant woman with a red 1 Catalogue: Fattori. Edited by Francesca Dini, Fernan- horizon. At times likened to predellas on an headscarf on the left, who reappears in later do Mazzotta and Giuliano Matteucci. 239 pp. incl. 160 col. + b. & w. ills. (Marsilio Editori, Venice, 2015), 35. altarpiece, the elongated images seem to have works such as The white road (1887; no.80) and € more in common with the plein-air studies of in one of his etchings (no.107), is clearly a stock ISBN 978–88–317–2203–2. A major exhibition of all Corot, which Fattori had been shown by his figure in Fattori’s repertoire. Rather than criti- the Macchiaioli painters, I Macchiaioli prima dell’Impres- sionismo, was shown at the same venue in 2003–04. friend the Roman painter Nino Costa, who cal social commentary, works like these seem 2 The larger definitive version, also completed in 1862 had seen the French master’s work in at to exalt the everyday heroism of domesticated (Palazzo Pitti, Florence), is never lent. the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Fattori country life. If the horse, which Fattori painted 3 Jean-Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, referred to these small paintings as ‘studies’, so well, can be identified with war and battles, first conceived of the idea for the organisation during even if some of them have a highly finished the ox symbolises nature, a benevolent and the battles he witnessed in Italy during the Second War quality. Their rudimentary supports seem to transformative force, as described in the poems of Independence in 1859. reinforce their experimental nature, and may of Giosuè Carducci, Italy’s national poet at the 4 See R. Monti: Les Macchiaioli et le Cinéma, Paris 1979. indicate why they were rarely sold; instead time. The animal’s curative powers are implied Fattori would either give them to his friends in Fattori’s notable later paintings of country and associates or keep them in his studio, scenes, such as Rest: the red cart (no.86; Fig.89), pinned to his easel, as he did with the where the monumental oxen dominates the Carolee Schneemann emblematic Macchiaiolo painting, The scene, towering over the seated peasant. Palmieri Terrace at Livorno (Fig.86), in which After the death of his first wife in 1867, Salzburg the women’s dresses are indicated by alternate Fattori spent long periods in the company of black and colour patches, giving the composi- his friend and supporter the critic Diego by MARTHA BARRATT tion a rhythmic quality which, despite its Martelli at his home in Castiglioncello. These diminutive size, appears monumental. sojourns would give rise to several pictures THE ECSTATIC ABANDON captured in the Fattori painted the Tuscan landscape drenched in the light peculiar to the Marem- photographs of Carolee Schneemann’s per- throughout his career, but never thought ma, such as the famous informal portrait of formance of Meat joy, in Paris and New York of himself as a pure landscape artist. Although at Castiglioncello (1867; no.56), in 1969, has come to define an era of avant- he produced some empty landscapes, one where the sitter becomes merely one element garde performance associated with sexual senses that they served as studies for the back- in a rigorous structure of volumes created by liberation, burgeoning forms of feminist grounds of his paintings of peasants, animals patches of colour. expression, and with the experimental art and military scenes. In The brush gatherers (1866; Despite its comprehensive nature and the forms of John Cage, Happenings and the no.21), the figures, like statues, punctuate the inclusion of several major works, the exhibi- Judson Dance Theatre. Images of the orgiastic composition, almost as if they were superim- tion fails to present Fattori in the best light. performance, in which near-naked young performers dance, roll, paint one another’s bodies and wrestle with raw chicken and fish, have become familiar through exhibitions and published surveys, from performance and feminist art to Pop art, as a signpost to the spirit of New York’s vibrant underground art scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Schnee- mann’s participation in this environment, and especially her close relationships with other artists, is an important factor in under- standing the development of her early per- formances. The primacy given to this early period of her career in scholarship, however, has resulted in a relative lack of recognition of Schneemann’s later output. The wealth and complexity of her career, spanning more than fifty years, demonstrates an enduring commitment not just to performance but to painting, collage, sculpture, installation, film, 89. Rest: the red cart, by Giovanni Fattori. c.1887. Canvas, 82 by 178 cm. (, ; exh. Palazzo drawing and writing. The exhibition Carolee Zabarella, Padua). Schneemann. Kinetic Painting at the Museum

230 march 2016 • clviIi • the burlington magazine