Alfredo Zecca - The Column of the Old Orchard

The urban landscape was already a popular subject in the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, but predominantly in an idealized manner. Scenes of city life became typical themes with a more realistic interpretation starting in the 19th century. It's worth remembering how, immediately following the realist movements of the 19th century, the Impressionists also placed great emphasis on the everyday, on everyday life, with a certain predilection, however, for the frenetic pace of the city, its crowds, traffic, and typically bourgeois settings. In Alfredo Zecca's city views, as in the present work, the everyday aspect prevails, the frank and sincere realism of everyday life in a city setting.

Alfredo Zecca's style presents a perfect fusion of realism and a delicate impressionistic rendering of sensory details. On the one hand, the artist precisely describes the view in all its details, with a strong sense of urban reality and the everyday life of simple life. On the other, his refined painting technique and diluted color allow him to convey a sense of immediacy to the panel, thanks to rapid brushstrokes charged with atmospheric vibrations. Light thus reverberates on objects, but without interfering with the precise description of reality. The entire view is thus characterized by a clear luminosity that is revealed, by contrast, in the play of shadows. The use of a palette of soft and delicate colors also serves this purpose.

Alfredo Zecca was born in La Spezia in 1917. He moved to Milan with his family in 1930 as a young man, and it was in Milan that he spent most of his career. He trained at the Brera Academy, and his work was exhibited for the first time in 1950 at the Galleria Travaglini. Between 1950 and 1960, his work was featured in seven major solo exhibitions in Milan, Trieste, Como, Monza, and Vigevano, in addition to an unspecified number of group exhibitions and painting awards. An expert in watercolor, a technique with which he primarily created vibrant urban views, Alfreda Zecca was, in the 1970s, a leading proponent of the AIA, the Italian Watercolorists Association.

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