2 CASE DELLA VECCHIA DARSENA - EN

2 . Case della vecchia darsena,, 1935-39 pencil on paper cm. 23,5 x 35

The horizontal work by Catarsini, dating back to the second half of the 1930s, portrays some sixteenth-century houses in Viareggio that are reflected in the Burlamacca canal. In the center stand two taller buildings, flanked by two shorter ones, with simple hints of doors, windows and a portico on the ground floor. The drawing, with delicate contours, highlights the importance of graphic construction in the artist’s formal research, both in the profiles of the buildings and in their shadows.

Insights

Since the beginning, docks, canals and boats have been among the subjects of choice in Catarsini’s painting, frequently characterized by the absence of human figures. In these works, silent objects are reflected in the water and the views become melancholic, while the passage of time seems to stop in the moment in which reality becomes a meditative and poetic vision, albeit structured with perspective and spatial security.

In these years, the author frequently exhibited figure paintings, self-portraits and views of Viareggio at trade union exhibitions, both local and regional and national, from Viareggio to Lucca, from Florence to Naples where, in 1937, one of his works, Cantiere, was exhibited at the Palazzina Spagnolo, later purchased by the Minister of Popular Culture, Edoardo Alfieri.