34 NUDO FEMMINILE (LA ROSSA) - EN

34. Nudo femminile 1939, oil on cardboard, 70 x 50 cm

The vertical work presents a young woman depicted in profile to the left. Her hair is a strong, dark red, a chromatic detail that immediately stands out. She is sitting naked on a stool, and her grayish complexion, while emanating a certain luminosity, emerges forcefully from the black background that surrounds her. In her posture, the left arm is positioned to cover the nakedness of the belly, while the right elbow is resting on the raised right thigh, creating a diagonal line in the body.

The contrast between the red of the hair, the gray and luminous of the skin and the black of the background creates a strong visual impact. The choice of a grayish complexion is unusual and could suggest different interpretations. It is interesting how, even in a classic subject such as the nude, Catarsini introduces elements that make it unique and distinctive.

Insights

Within the vast production of Alfredo Catarsini, Simbolismo meccanico is often perceived as a divergent phase compared to his works more anchored to the figurative tradition, such as landscapes and portraits.

However, this female nude dated 1939 is an important testimony to how Catarsini always felt an intimate need not to limit his activity to the most conventional painting, the one that perhaps responded more to the taste of the public or the juries of the time. Already early on, therefore, he cultivated a freer and more personal investigation.

The work reveals a lesser-known Catarsini, an artist who felt the urgency to explore different forms of expression, perhaps anticipating his subsequent opening towards a more symbolic and surreal language. He tells us that his artistic research has always been animated by a curiosity and a desire for experimentation that went beyond the expectations of the moment, and he surprises us with the angularity of a sign that has its roots in the expressionist language, with its deforming simplifications, with the two-dimensionality that cancels the volumes of the twentieth century and with the inflections of a language updated on modern European trends, revealing his desire to undertake directions of research that diverged from those promoted by the official art of the period.

1939 was a year full of participations in important regional and national art exhibitions for Catarsini.

Along with the sixth Summer Exhibition at the Kursaal, the First Art Exhibition of the City of San Miniato and the XI Interprovincial Exhibition of Florence, his presence at the First Bergamo Prize and the second place won at the Cremona Prize stand out, the two events that competed for primacy in the pictorial panorama of fascist Italy.