There are some Fattori prints in room 91 at the moment which fascinate me. The recent Italian acquisitions are opening up a whole new world for me, so forgive me if this is disjointed.
Fattori (1825-1908) was a painter from Livorno, Italy. As with Paglia, who's Lion I showed you a few days ago, he fought in the revolutionary wars of the 19th century so there was often a certain political charge in his work. He aligned himself with the Macchiaioli, a group of Tuscan painters who were determined to break away from the restrictions of the Italian academy and who understood that illusion is based not on detail and refinement but on colour, light and shade. As with the impressionists a few years later, they were ridiculed for showing work which looked more like sketches than finished painting. Although there is a lot of overlap with the impressionists, their goals were more politicised. Fattori's paintings were often either understated portraits or military scenes of soldiers at rest on the one hand, and large historical battle scenes on the other. The theme I will pick up here though is the peasant landscape. Again and again he painted animals resting, people trudging, haystacks and so on in a land of harsh sun and parching wind. As he became more downbeat and dis-illusioned, so this work became ever harsher. Anyone who has read the Little World of Don Camillo will consider the landscape familiar. It is this world that dominates the little part of his printed output that I have seen.
As he became more downbeat and dis-illusioned, so this work became ever harsher.
The early 20th century was a time of constant change in art and Fattori, who while never really having been in fashion had at one point perhaps been considered to be at the forefront of such change, was quickly left behind. He lived out his final years in a poverty at least equal to that of his subject matter.
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