DOI issue:
Nr. 122 (May 1903)
DOI article:Agresti, Olivia Rossetti: The art of the late Giovanni Costa
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19878#0252
Giovanni Costa
where a small band of heroes kept the French
army at bay for a whole month, only evacuating it
when the walls fell before the persistent bombard-
ment of the French, burying the dead defenders in
their fall. Here, in Costa's own words, heroism
had become a matter of habit. In those momen-
tous days he belonged to the Republican munici-
pality of Rome. He fought in the defence of
Porta San Pancrazio ; and when the last hopes of
holding the city had to be given up, when heroism
and self-sacrifice could no longer delay the triumph
of might over right, he left Rome and retired to
the forests of Ariccia, there to dedicate himself
once more exclusively to his beloved art.
Perhaps the majestic and desolate beauty of the
Campagna, and the silent mystery of those woods
where he took refuge, awaiting the day when the
call to arms should again summon him to fight for
his country, were his only real teachers. Certainly
we now enter on a most fruitful period of his life,
one which was to fix his artistic personality, and fit
him for the innovating action he was destined to
exercise on Italian art. To the following ten years
belong many most important works, amongst which
was Ad Fontem Ariccinam, a large and important
picture representing a group of peasant women
drawing water at a spring in the wood. The
reddish glow cast over the scene by a tempestuous
sunset harmonises with the dark green and hectic
yellow of the autumn foliage, and with the severe
outlines of the women filling or carrying on their
heads their copper vessels full of water : rain has
begun to fall, and some have already opened their
large, archaic-shaped umbrellas. The group is
instinct with character. We see the handsome,
taciturn women of the Roman Campagna; the
sweethearts meeting as if by chance ; the mother
dancing her baby who has just sucked its full from
her ample bosom ; the gossiping group retailing
.the scandal of the village and looking askance at
the tall, disdainful girl who has been betrayed by
her lover. Each figure tells its tale, and the
picture conveys an impression of sadness, speaking
of the approaching autumn, and of the sultry,
stormy heat of a late September evening.
To this same period belong After Sunset on the
Alban Hills, Coeli ennarent Gloriam Dei, Scirocco
on the Roman Coast, and his famous Women on the
sea-shore of Porto d'Anzio, a truely historical pic-
ture which fixed the fame of Costa and ushered in
a new epoch in Italian art. In this picture the
brilliant crystalline atmosphere of Latium bathes
the scene, throbbing and vibrating in the spacious
horizon, against which we descry the distant outline
of the island of Circe. The group of women,
elegant and graceful in their national ciocciara
costume, in which Costa avoided all harsh discord
of colour, stand out against the luminous sky,
'the charcoal burner" (In possession of Madame Costa) by Giovanni costa
240
where a small band of heroes kept the French
army at bay for a whole month, only evacuating it
when the walls fell before the persistent bombard-
ment of the French, burying the dead defenders in
their fall. Here, in Costa's own words, heroism
had become a matter of habit. In those momen-
tous days he belonged to the Republican munici-
pality of Rome. He fought in the defence of
Porta San Pancrazio ; and when the last hopes of
holding the city had to be given up, when heroism
and self-sacrifice could no longer delay the triumph
of might over right, he left Rome and retired to
the forests of Ariccia, there to dedicate himself
once more exclusively to his beloved art.
Perhaps the majestic and desolate beauty of the
Campagna, and the silent mystery of those woods
where he took refuge, awaiting the day when the
call to arms should again summon him to fight for
his country, were his only real teachers. Certainly
we now enter on a most fruitful period of his life,
one which was to fix his artistic personality, and fit
him for the innovating action he was destined to
exercise on Italian art. To the following ten years
belong many most important works, amongst which
was Ad Fontem Ariccinam, a large and important
picture representing a group of peasant women
drawing water at a spring in the wood. The
reddish glow cast over the scene by a tempestuous
sunset harmonises with the dark green and hectic
yellow of the autumn foliage, and with the severe
outlines of the women filling or carrying on their
heads their copper vessels full of water : rain has
begun to fall, and some have already opened their
large, archaic-shaped umbrellas. The group is
instinct with character. We see the handsome,
taciturn women of the Roman Campagna; the
sweethearts meeting as if by chance ; the mother
dancing her baby who has just sucked its full from
her ample bosom ; the gossiping group retailing
.the scandal of the village and looking askance at
the tall, disdainful girl who has been betrayed by
her lover. Each figure tells its tale, and the
picture conveys an impression of sadness, speaking
of the approaching autumn, and of the sultry,
stormy heat of a late September evening.
To this same period belong After Sunset on the
Alban Hills, Coeli ennarent Gloriam Dei, Scirocco
on the Roman Coast, and his famous Women on the
sea-shore of Porto d'Anzio, a truely historical pic-
ture which fixed the fame of Costa and ushered in
a new epoch in Italian art. In this picture the
brilliant crystalline atmosphere of Latium bathes
the scene, throbbing and vibrating in the spacious
horizon, against which we descry the distant outline
of the island of Circe. The group of women,
elegant and graceful in their national ciocciara
costume, in which Costa avoided all harsh discord
of colour, stand out against the luminous sky,
'the charcoal burner" (In possession of Madame Costa) by Giovanni costa
240