DOI issue:
No. 133 (March, 1908)
DOI article:Melani, Alfredo: An Italian "Luminist": Carlo Fornara
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28254#0062
Carlo Fornara, Italian “ Lnminist ”
associated with the master, and by this means still
further strengthened himself in the mysteries of
colour. And of this school of painting it was
destined that Carlo Fornara should by-and-by
become one of the most successful representatives.
Thus our artist owes his early education to
Cavalli, and, indirectly, to France. From the same
source sprang the art of Segantini, as the “ Seganti-
nian ” paintings abundantly reveal. This might
indicate that, without knowing it, Fornara became
initiated into “ Segantinism”; for after his first
meetings with Cavalli Fornara showed himself
greatly interested in the powerful phenomena of
light. M. Fornara, however, is a calculating repro-
ducer of the phenomena of light. While recalling his
master, Cavalli, he endeavours to take into account
all the luminous “accidents” which animate his
canvases, and he will talk of the gradations of light
with a certainty of expression which is quite sur-
prising to his hearers. “ The painter,” remarked
Fornara to me, “ should proceed like the
sculptor, with this difference, that the former
needs clay for his productions, while the latter
demands light.”
In 1889 Fornara abandoned the Cavalli school,
feeling the need of absolute meditation in the
presence of nature itself. Thanks to his fine
equipment, he succeeded in making a most satisfac-
tory first appearance at the Milan Exhibition in 1891.
He was about twenty at the time, and here for the
first time saw the work of Segantini, who exhibited
a Cow in a Yard and the Two Mothers. On
the mind of Fornara these two pictures produced
as it were the impression of a dream realised, for
the young painter’s ideas found their complete form
in the works produced by Segantini.
Fornara at once had the conviction that the
superiority of the Segantinian paintings over all
others in the “ Triennial ” was derived from the
“ divisionist ” technique, which he loved beyond
all others. Of this method Fornara is now the
main supporter in Italy.
It is to be remarked that the “ divisionism ” or
“ luminism ” of Fornara is filamentous, or thready,
“the little white church’1
BY CARLO FORNARA
associated with the master, and by this means still
further strengthened himself in the mysteries of
colour. And of this school of painting it was
destined that Carlo Fornara should by-and-by
become one of the most successful representatives.
Thus our artist owes his early education to
Cavalli, and, indirectly, to France. From the same
source sprang the art of Segantini, as the “ Seganti-
nian ” paintings abundantly reveal. This might
indicate that, without knowing it, Fornara became
initiated into “ Segantinism”; for after his first
meetings with Cavalli Fornara showed himself
greatly interested in the powerful phenomena of
light. M. Fornara, however, is a calculating repro-
ducer of the phenomena of light. While recalling his
master, Cavalli, he endeavours to take into account
all the luminous “accidents” which animate his
canvases, and he will talk of the gradations of light
with a certainty of expression which is quite sur-
prising to his hearers. “ The painter,” remarked
Fornara to me, “ should proceed like the
sculptor, with this difference, that the former
needs clay for his productions, while the latter
demands light.”
In 1889 Fornara abandoned the Cavalli school,
feeling the need of absolute meditation in the
presence of nature itself. Thanks to his fine
equipment, he succeeded in making a most satisfac-
tory first appearance at the Milan Exhibition in 1891.
He was about twenty at the time, and here for the
first time saw the work of Segantini, who exhibited
a Cow in a Yard and the Two Mothers. On
the mind of Fornara these two pictures produced
as it were the impression of a dream realised, for
the young painter’s ideas found their complete form
in the works produced by Segantini.
Fornara at once had the conviction that the
superiority of the Segantinian paintings over all
others in the “ Triennial ” was derived from the
“ divisionist ” technique, which he loved beyond
all others. Of this method Fornara is now the
main supporter in Italy.
It is to be remarked that the “ divisionism ” or
“ luminism ” of Fornara is filamentous, or thready,
“the little white church’1
BY CARLO FORNARA