Arturo Ferrari - Lake Lugano

Landscape has always been a central focus of artistic research, both as a setting, as a backdrop, and as a subject itself. The naturalistic depiction of landscape has been a major aspiration for artists of every era. Each historical period has offered its own interpretation of landscape, contributing to the evolution of its depiction: first with an exploration of space, through Brunelleschi's perspective in the early Renaissance; then with atmospheric rendering in the sixteenth century; and finally with the depiction of every single vibration of light on objects in Impressionism. In Arturo Ferrari's paintings, however, landscape takes on a very specific connotation within a late nineteenth-century realist/verist style of painting. Indeed, the subjects chosen by Arturo Ferrari imply not so much a desire to replicate the sensory data of nature, but rather a desire to frame a social reality, linked to a popular everyday situation. The landscape view almost merges with the genre scene, precisely because of this social character that realist painting assumes.

As previously mentioned, Arturo Ferrari's works are framed within a realist framework. This is evident from the composition itself. Indeed, the episode captured from everyday life is captured on the canvas fleetingly, almost instantaneously, as if the artist had taken a snapshot on the spot. The artist is not interested in carefully calibrated balance in the composition, but prefers to imbue the scene with an authenticity that can be found in its temporary and unrepeatable nature. For this reason, Ferrari, with a decidedly dynamic watercolor technique, helps capture a precise situation of light and atmosphere. And it is here that the outstanding technical and artistic prowess of a master like Arturo Ferrari is evident. His realist streak does not prevent him from describing things with extraordinary landscape lyricism. Everything is bathed in a coherent, clear light that perfectly unifies the scene. Furthermore, Ferrari's touch, besides being soft, is also charged with vibrations that give the work a fresh execution, bringing it back to the truth of existence. It is all this that makes Arturo Ferrari a great interpreter of that pictorial climate which, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, managed to combine the extraordinary quality of an academically trained painting with the immediacy of execution that the innovations of the Impressionists had brought.

Arturo Ferrari was born in Milan in 1861 and died in 1932. He trained at the Brera Academy, where he studied under Giuseppe Bertini from 1877 to 1884. At the same time, he also frequented the studio of Gerolamo Induno. His debut in 1879 was a view of the interior of Milan Cathedral, marking the beginning of his vast production of oils and watercolors, a realistic yet poetic and sentimental evocation of old Milan. He then continued with works in Como, Pavia, and Venice. With his Romantic painting, he quickly became the leading figure in this movement. His works are held at the Museo di Milano, the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, and several private collections.

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