53. Marina con figure, 1953, oil on panel, 50 x 60 cm

The horizontal work is set on a wild beach with vegetation and dunes typical of the coast south of Viareggio and driftwood; three female figures, naked and standing, two from behind and one on the left in profile

to the right, are painted with unreal colors (red, leaden blue and dark brown). They all turn their gaze to the sea where on the right there is a boat with sails unfurled.

The three women are immersed and in harmony in a place of the heart, ideal and almost primordial; they are free in their nudity in harmony with the natural landscape, inserted within a composition that recalls the typical structure of Catarsini’s marines: the strip of sand at the bottom in the foreground, where the subjects of the work are positioned, the line of the shoreline, then the sea and the sky in the background.

Insights

The technical and figurative research conducted by Catarsini during the 1950s was certainly stimulated by the neorealist and existential climate of that period, as well as by his never-dormant underlying expressionism that led him to create paintings in which the emotional aspect, entrusted to the brightness of the colors and the dynamism of the brushstroke, is frequently rationalized by the compositional structure.

Sometimes there is greater expressive freedom, as in this work characterized by the loose brushstroke, which seems to want to deconstruct the form, and by the chiaroscuro tones raised by pure color stamps.

Marina con figure concludes the selection of works by Rodolfo Bona for the traveling exhibition Il Novecento di Catarsini. Dalla Macchia alla macchina. This work is famous for having been chosen by Antonio Paolucci as the cover of the catalogue of the exhibition “Alfredo Catarsini Il pittore toscano dell’emozione” (Florence Palazzo Panciatichi 2025), an exhibition that preceded the entry of the 1934 self-portrait into the Uffizi Collection of self-portraits. Bona is also responsible for the creation of the detailed cards of the works in the catalogue.

Experiential laboratory for people with visual impairments

Marina with figures has been exclusively reinterpreted in tactile sculptural high relief by Massimiliano Trubbiani of the Museo Tattile Statale Omero in Ancona. The high relief, accompanied by adapted descriptions and audio recordings by the Catarsini Foundation to facilitate tactile exploration, constitutes the setting of an Experiential Laboratory specifically designed for people with visual impairments, but open to all.

For information and guided tours info@fondazionecatarsini.com – www.fondazionecatarsini.com