48. Capanni sul mare, oil on hardboard, 50 x 70 cm, 1936.

In this horizontal work, the view is based on a solid compositional and spatial structure marked by three bands: the beach in the foreground, then a strip of sea about halfway up the painting, and finally the wide band of sky in the background. At the bottom left, there is a pile of wood left by the storm and among the shrubs that color the dunes green, there are 3 huts, described in their essential forms. The three parallelepipeds, yellow with red pyramidal roofs, two close together on the left and one more distant on the right, do not block the view of the sea. In the center, in the foreground, a boat placed sideways on the sand with the bow facing left and below is placed along an ascending diagonal that starts from the foreground on the left with the pile of wood, leads towards the boat and reaches the hut placed further to the right, just before the blue strip of sea, raised by the white of the waves breaking on the shoreline. In the composition, his strongly expressive temperament is appreciated through an almost dramatic palette, characterized by primary colors and green.

Insights

Alfredo Catarsini’s production is characterized by fidelity to some subjects that constantly return in his painting, such as those linked to the dimension of the landscape and, in particular, to the seascapes. This is also evidenced by the present painting and the following one, chronologically spaced by 40 years between them, but both dedicated to the characteristic Versilian huts that inhabit, with their geometric volumes, solitary and deserted beaches, sometimes with small boats, remnants of storm surges and, more rarely, with sparse human figures.

In this work, the influence that Carlo Carrà’s painting had on Catarsini cannot be overlooked, repeatedly underlined by critics starting from the 1930s, a decade that saw a growing affirmation of the artist from Viareggio, also in the national exhibition circuit.

Carrà began to frequent Versilia starting from 1926 and from then on he would never leave it, continuing to stay for all the summers of his life in Forte dei Marmi and frequenting the Quarto Platano, for some decades a meeting point for great personalities of the Italian literary and artistic scene also frequented by Catarsini who had a lasting friendship with Carrà.

In the 1930s, Versilia was still close to the wild and solitary dimension that had enchanted D’Annunzio, with beaches beaten by the waves, where pale vegetation grew that, behind a row of very modest dunes, gave way to a robust and pungent scrubland, with tamarisks and wild pines.