Dopo il bagno

81. Dopo il bagno, 1954, oil on plywood, 132 x 101 cm

This large vertical painting is set on a wild beach with dune vegetation typical of the coast south of Viareggio and depicts two female figures side by side, nude and standing; the one on the left, with his back to them, and the one on the right, with his frontal view,

they are painted in the uniform pink and slightly amber hue of their not very tanned skin. The figure on the left supports with her left forearm, and the figure on the right holds a dark cloth in her left hand. The title itself indicates that they have just bathed in the sea, and indeed, beyond the line of the beach that ends at their shoulders, the sea appears blue with light whitish hues from small waves. The sky is slightly pink, signifying that it is sunset. The two 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 marine paintings: the strip of sand in the lower foreground, where the subjects of the work are positioned, the line of the shoreline, then the sea and the sky in the background.

INSIGHTS

Catarsini’s technical and figurative research during the 1950s was undoubtedly stimulated by the neorealist and existential climate of the period, as well as by his never-ending expressionism, which led him to create paintings in which the emotional aspect, entrusted to the vibrant colors and dynamism of the brushstroke, is frequently rationalized by the compositional structure.

At times, greater expressive freedom is evident, as in this work, with figures characterized by loose brushstrokes that seem to deconstruct the form, and by chiaroscuro tones enhanced by pure color tints.