DOI Artikel:
Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21214#0149
Studio-Talk
others. In 1901 he had already made his mark
there with his painting, full of poetic suggestion,
entitled Sinfonia della Luna (Moonlight Symphony)
and other works, a success which he followed up
two years later with his masterly composition
entitled The Treasures of the Sea.
At the commencement of our century Nomellini
had already found his message of art in rendering
the mystery and wonder of light; and though some
of his earlier works, with their reminiscence of the
risorgimento, bring us closer to the spirit of his
master, Fattori, it is as a luminist that he claims our
attention here, and it is in this relation that his
work, which I have studied in every consecutive
Venice exhibition for the last eight years and at
the Roman “ Secessions,” has chiefly impressed me.
In the “ Secession” of 1913 at Rome I recollect what
a delight it was to enter the room set apart' for his
paintings. Simple as was the decorative scheme
—plain restful walls, plain wood frames and furni-
ture—the room seemed radiant with light, and gave
one the impression of entering suddenly into the
sunshine. Such, too, was, if we may judge by his
own works, the impression which the artist sought
to convey in these paintings. “ They tell in their
unison,” he said there, “ the story of a pleasant
excursion through a happy country. Restless,
quickly-moving clouds traverse the skies, leaving
their patterns carpeted on the plains; the faces of
children smile; a sense of music is in the air.
Here there is not the imagination which is bound
and struggles to be free, kindling visions of tumult
and of terror; only the soul is here, intent on
gathering the echoes of those melodies which rise up
from the kindly earth and are lost in the limitless
space — the soul which anxiously listens and
treasures them. Before this vision I have no need,
no wish to assert any problem of technique or
theory.”
One phrase in this description seems to lead
us near the heart of the painter’s creation : “ The
soul . . . intent on gathering the echo of those
melodies which rise up from the kindly earth. . .
Gaetano Previati, the apostle in modern Italy of
the Divisionist theory, has stated that “ the disin-
tegration (sconposizione) of colours, tending to
“an idyll of the maremma”
BY PLINIO NOMELLINI
143
others. In 1901 he had already made his mark
there with his painting, full of poetic suggestion,
entitled Sinfonia della Luna (Moonlight Symphony)
and other works, a success which he followed up
two years later with his masterly composition
entitled The Treasures of the Sea.
At the commencement of our century Nomellini
had already found his message of art in rendering
the mystery and wonder of light; and though some
of his earlier works, with their reminiscence of the
risorgimento, bring us closer to the spirit of his
master, Fattori, it is as a luminist that he claims our
attention here, and it is in this relation that his
work, which I have studied in every consecutive
Venice exhibition for the last eight years and at
the Roman “ Secessions,” has chiefly impressed me.
In the “ Secession” of 1913 at Rome I recollect what
a delight it was to enter the room set apart' for his
paintings. Simple as was the decorative scheme
—plain restful walls, plain wood frames and furni-
ture—the room seemed radiant with light, and gave
one the impression of entering suddenly into the
sunshine. Such, too, was, if we may judge by his
own works, the impression which the artist sought
to convey in these paintings. “ They tell in their
unison,” he said there, “ the story of a pleasant
excursion through a happy country. Restless,
quickly-moving clouds traverse the skies, leaving
their patterns carpeted on the plains; the faces of
children smile; a sense of music is in the air.
Here there is not the imagination which is bound
and struggles to be free, kindling visions of tumult
and of terror; only the soul is here, intent on
gathering the echoes of those melodies which rise up
from the kindly earth and are lost in the limitless
space — the soul which anxiously listens and
treasures them. Before this vision I have no need,
no wish to assert any problem of technique or
theory.”
One phrase in this description seems to lead
us near the heart of the painter’s creation : “ The
soul . . . intent on gathering the echo of those
melodies which rise up from the kindly earth. . .
Gaetano Previati, the apostle in modern Italy of
the Divisionist theory, has stated that “ the disin-
tegration (sconposizione) of colours, tending to
“an idyll of the maremma”
BY PLINIO NOMELLINI
143