Sunset in Valtrompia (Filippini)
Sunset in Valtrompia (also known as Vespero in Valtrompia) is a 19th-century late impressionist painting of the Filippinims movement of which Francesco Filippini was the leader which will continue even after his death in the influence of the landscape of Italian painters.
Sunset in Valtrompia in oil by Francesco Filippini. It was painted about 1883, in Valtrompia, Italy. Is in the collection of the Civic Museums of Brescia.
Description
It is a work in which the evidence of Filipinoism is full, the artistic movement of Francesco Filippini that was born in opposition and response to Claude Monet, in which the social denunciation of women's work, their importance and their dignified effort is alive, as mothers and workers, compared to the coloristic works of the French Impressionists who find space in the salons of American collectors, who do not care about violations of academic rules and love color and image, willing to pay beyond the usual price. The movement created by Filippini, precisely called Filippinismo, of which he is only the creator, after a long artistic research and forced oppression to maintain academic forms, competitions with rules, historical images, commissioned portraits that he hated, represents blossoming later the true movement of Italian Impressionism, which many of his friends, painting companions, students will follow, and will continue to do so for generations after his death. A movement that Filippini himself did not want to be organized, as for the Scapigliati, but felt, and experienced in the open air.
In the work Vespero in Valtrompia, which will find a lot of fame in its time, the suggestion created by the five women is evident who with their wide white fringed shawls called "Zendali", typical of the women of the people of the Republic of Venice, who protect the head and shoulders, in contrast with the hard black grass earth, damp, cold and dark.
The icon of the "zendali" sciali is also remembered by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his Journey to Italy (a Grand Tour to acculturate the nobility of the time), but also Giovanni Boccaccio in the Decameron, Carlo Goldoni in the comedy The cunning widow, and Alessandro Manzoni in The Betrothed (Chapter XXXII).
Three carry the load of wood, one the pannier. A squat perhaps takes a breath. Or what else does it do? The tree on the right below and the patches of snow on the left above balance and embellish the scene. Whether main or secondary, the work is part of the "Valley Cycle" (Valtrompia) full of Filippini's masterpieces. Filippini went to Valtrompia in the summer to visit his brother Ludovico, a worker in the royal arms factory. There is an indelible trace of Filippini's stays in many works as evidenced by "The Church of Bovegno", "Il Mella in Valtrompia", "The valley of Inzino", "Rustic courtyard".
It is thanks to this work that Filippini will receive the money to finally be able to enroll at the Brera Academy in Milan, to which he had aspired so much, having abandoned the idea of joining the Guardia di Finanza, which he admired.
Filippini's pictorial composition is totally avant-garde, in which light and color remain the protagonists, all based on the contrast of the white shawls that jump out towards the viewer, and the earth, a meadow of black grass soaked in humidity. in which women have to walk, creating a refined pictorial grammar unique for the time that will influence all landscape painting in Italy and abroad for future generations as well.
Art prize
Premio Brozzoni, 1882
Exhibition
Francesco Filippini Protagonista del Naturalismo, Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, 1999-2000
Brescia, 1934, p. 56, n. 324
Brescia, 1956, p. 29, p. 58, n. 79
Brescia, 1979
Villa Carcina, 1992, p. 51
Bibliography
Francesco Filippini, un protagonista del Naturalismo, Ed. Skira, 1999, Cover
Giorgio Nicodemi, 1927, p. 112
Carlo Zatti, 1931, p. 15
E. Somare, "In Brescia", 1934, p. 19
Ugo Galetti, Ettore Camesasca, 1950, p. 937
S. Pagani, 1955, p. 263
Enrico Piceni, M. Cinotti, 1962, p. 546
Gaetano Panazza, 1964, p. 62
B. Spataro, 1964, p. 956
Luciano Anelli, 1984, pp. 268, 269, 200
Luciano Anelli, 1985, p. 58
L'Ottocento a Palazzo Isimbardi, Provincia di Milano, 1987, p. 50
Renata Stradiotti, 1989, p. 192
Valerio Terraroli, 1997, p. 712
References
Other websites
Paintings by Francesco Filippini
1880s paintings