20 NUDO SEDUTO - EN
20. Nudo seduto 1950, charcoal on paper, 70 x 50 cm,
The vertical charcoal drawing belongs to a series of nudes made with the same technique and the same format, in which the author studies the female body in various poses.
In this one the model is portrayed from behind. She is sitting in the lower left corner and her back is oriented obliquely towards the right where the head reaches the opposite corner. The right thigh forms an acute angle with the torso and the right elbow rests on it.
Insights
Like the other nudes in the same series, it falls into the category of what could be considered “academies”, that is, drawings in which the artist studies poses, lighting and modelling of the figure.
Outlined by a nervous contour line, these nudes are striking for the rendering of volumes and shadows through the thickening of the charcoal and for the speed of the hatching. Technically, they can be linked to those made for the sacred compositions of the previous decade but, stylistically and conceptually, they belong to the new phase that began in the 1950s and coincided with the beginning of his teaching of Mosaic Decoration and Design at the “Stagio Stagi” Institute in Pietrasanta in 1951, where he then held the chair of Life Drawing until 1969.
The decades between 1950 and 1970 are characterized by the refinement of graphic exercise and the accentuation of plastic-sculptural research through a process of synthesis of form and sign that can be inserted into an expressive vein that elects the female body as the privileged terrain of investigation. These nudes open an intense period of graphic-pictorial research in the exercise of the genre through drawings, mixed-media works and oil paintings.
In Catarsini, the nude represents a constant subject and a tribute to feminine beauty, a symbol of a humanity capable of living in a harmonious relationship with nature. The sensuality of his nudes does not reside so much in an abstract ideal of beauty as in the ability to render the essence of femininity in its intimate spontaneity.