 It’s strange how terms of disparagement have come to define entire art movements. It was the case once when to call a painting an impressionist or a futurist or even a cubist work was considered a sort of belittlement. So it was too with that wonderful Italian school of painters which started flourishing towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the so-called ‘macchiaioli’. That word derives from the Italian word ‘macchia’ for stain which is hardly a flattering description. However it does describe what early art critics felt about a school of painters which placed the reality of what was represented on canvas before any adherence to the then prevalent canons of academic art where strict draughtsmanship and the drawing of the subjects’ contours was considered de rigeur before any paint was actually applied. For the Macchiaioli artists were true rebels against the rules of the bourgeoise salon and their creations were certainly not welcome in upper-class households. There is frequently made a description of this glorious artistic movement as being an Italian version of French-style impressionism. True, both movements drew their inspiration from fresh air, nature and the quality of light. Both movements notoriously also found themselves rejected by the establishment of their age and, sadly, too many painters died in penurious circumstances. However, the differences between these two artistic rebels are just as important. I would rank the following as the most important: 1. Historically. The Macchiaioli began to flourish well before the French impressionists, (although they did admit to being influenced by the latter’s Barbizon school). By the 1850’s there was a panoply of Italian macchiaioli whereas the French impressionists only really took off from the 1870’s and the famous scandal of the Salon des Refuses. 2. Technically. The Macchiaioli painters would prepare the sketches for their subjects en plein air, in the field but their canvas were invariably painted in their studios unlike the French school who invariably finished their paintings in natural surroundings. 3.Chromatically. The Italians avoided the more extreme colour tones of the French. No pinky-blue shadows for them! The colours in their creations are far closer to the landscape realities they saw. In this respect their paintings are, indeed, more stain-like. 4. Subject-selection. Interestingly the Italians avoided still-lives. Both nations, however, loved rural scenes, domestic interiors and seascapes. However, befittingly, as they lived in stirring times when Italy finally became one nation, the Macchiaioli branched into depiction of important national events both historical and contemporary. Giovanni Fattori’s vivid panoramas of military manoeuvres during the Italian wars of independence stick in the mind’s eye for also showing the pity, the waste of human life (several painters lost their lives during these campaigns) together with the undoubted heroics of actions in the field. Of course, the company of painters subscribing to the Macchiaioli movement were varied enough in their approaches although they all shared common anti-academic ideals. Although many of them met up in coffee-bars, like Florence’s ‘Michelagniolo’, to exchange ideas there were distinct schools within the movement. For me one of the most attractive was that set who gravitated to the shoreline of Castiglioncello south of Livorno to find their muse. Indeed, it is in this region that the word ‘macchia’ obtains a second and more complimentary meaning. For ‘macchia’ also means Mediterranean coastal vegetation which can range from scrubland to monumental avenues of umbrella pines. Those oxen from the Maremma, often depicted in these landscapes, are truly magnificent beasts! Critically the macchiaioli as part of an important artistic movement has steadily grown in stature in recent years. No longer are they regarded as second-rate relations of the French impressionists but rather as a creative surge of vital importance for the whole development of western art. Some artists clearly stand out for the supreme quality of their inspiration and technical prowess: Fattori and Signorini in particular. But all adherents of this phase are worth looking at….if one can find their work on public view. And that’s why this lovely exhibition at Pisa’s Palazzo Blu is so valuable. For a large number of pictures have vanished into private collections or been inherited by local patrician families. I have been privileged to view previous Macchiaioli exhibitions in other Italian galleries – most notably in Florence’s museo Bardini – but the Pisa one for me is the most outstanding to date combining some of the finest creations of the ‘stainists’ with an appropriate context which sets them clearly sandwiched between the stultified academic post-classical allegories of the earlier years of the nineteenth century and the newly emerging anti-conformist and often politically inebriated movements of twentieth century Italian art |
