DOI issue:
Nr. 203 (January, 1914)
DOI article:Brosch, L.: An Italian painter: Beppe Ciardi
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43454#0290
Beppe Ciardi
is a study of a shepherdess in a landscape suffused
with the golden tone’s of twilight.
Numerous as Ciardi’s figure pictures are, I am
inclined to think that the painter feels freer
and more at home—more “himself” in fact—
when he takes his place before his easel in the
open air—perhaps in the midst of a broad, verdant
meadow, with the infinite expanse of Italy’s blue
sky above him and far away from any sound save
the rustling of leaves and the distant tinkling of
sheep-bells. Although our artist is inclined to
loneliness he is not among those who seek the
solitude of the high mountains with their bare
rocky crags, for the life he loves most of all is one
of idyllic peace and brightness. But when storm-
clouds roll up across the clear sky and with
tempestuous rapidity gather overhead in black,
threatening masses, then he feels himself at one
with the death-bringing
elements, and we get such
a picture as Cielo minac-
cioso, in which we see a
white horse standing like a
spectre in the foreground
of a spacious landscape
against a background of
threatening sky, a theme
which is repeated with
slight variations in the
picture which derives its
title from the white horse,
Il Cavallo bianco; while in
numerous other pictures,
somewhat similar atmo¬
spheric conditions have
been recorded in a no less
masterly way.
In Ciardi’s dramatic
realisation of Nature’s
aspects one discerns a
certain distant affinity with
the great Dutch masters,
Cuyp and Van Borssom.
He is fond of the broad
vista, and in many of his
pictures a great placid
calm reigns over the whole.
Wide stretches of green
pasture lose themselves in
the hazy distance, while
often cattle of one or other
kind occupy the foreground,
and are observed and felt
landscape. The painting of the air has become so
to speak a vital necessity with him, and rarely do we
find him leaving off abruptly just above the line of
sight, as many landscape painters do from reasons
which do not require to be stated. On the
contrary, as the critic quoted above has remarked,
his landscapes often consist, to the extent of three
quarters, of azure sky and cloud and the distant
horizon. Ciardi is entirely a child of reality,
wholly absorbed in the material thing and seized
with a determination to capture the air which
wafts over fields and men and animals. And
unquestionably we are quite justified in regarding
him as one of the foremost animal painters in Italy
at the present day.
This article would not be complete were no
mention made of Ciardi as a painter of the lagoons
wuth which from the days of his childhood he has
as part and parcel of the
“sketch ”
BY BEPPE CIARDI
I90
is a study of a shepherdess in a landscape suffused
with the golden tone’s of twilight.
Numerous as Ciardi’s figure pictures are, I am
inclined to think that the painter feels freer
and more at home—more “himself” in fact—
when he takes his place before his easel in the
open air—perhaps in the midst of a broad, verdant
meadow, with the infinite expanse of Italy’s blue
sky above him and far away from any sound save
the rustling of leaves and the distant tinkling of
sheep-bells. Although our artist is inclined to
loneliness he is not among those who seek the
solitude of the high mountains with their bare
rocky crags, for the life he loves most of all is one
of idyllic peace and brightness. But when storm-
clouds roll up across the clear sky and with
tempestuous rapidity gather overhead in black,
threatening masses, then he feels himself at one
with the death-bringing
elements, and we get such
a picture as Cielo minac-
cioso, in which we see a
white horse standing like a
spectre in the foreground
of a spacious landscape
against a background of
threatening sky, a theme
which is repeated with
slight variations in the
picture which derives its
title from the white horse,
Il Cavallo bianco; while in
numerous other pictures,
somewhat similar atmo¬
spheric conditions have
been recorded in a no less
masterly way.
In Ciardi’s dramatic
realisation of Nature’s
aspects one discerns a
certain distant affinity with
the great Dutch masters,
Cuyp and Van Borssom.
He is fond of the broad
vista, and in many of his
pictures a great placid
calm reigns over the whole.
Wide stretches of green
pasture lose themselves in
the hazy distance, while
often cattle of one or other
kind occupy the foreground,
and are observed and felt
landscape. The painting of the air has become so
to speak a vital necessity with him, and rarely do we
find him leaving off abruptly just above the line of
sight, as many landscape painters do from reasons
which do not require to be stated. On the
contrary, as the critic quoted above has remarked,
his landscapes often consist, to the extent of three
quarters, of azure sky and cloud and the distant
horizon. Ciardi is entirely a child of reality,
wholly absorbed in the material thing and seized
with a determination to capture the air which
wafts over fields and men and animals. And
unquestionably we are quite justified in regarding
him as one of the foremost animal painters in Italy
at the present day.
This article would not be complete were no
mention made of Ciardi as a painter of the lagoons
wuth which from the days of his childhood he has
as part and parcel of the
“sketch ”
BY BEPPE CIARDI
I90