Carmelo Fertitta - Market

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, the crowds, the traffic, and typically bourgeois settings. In this city view by Carmelo Fertitta, the everyday aspect prevails, the frank and sincere realism of everyday life in an urban context. Typical of his work are images of city markets, where the human presence is ignored and the artist lets the buildings and objects speak for themselves, protagonists of a direct narrative, unfiltered by idealization. The fruit stalls, like the fishing boats in the marinas, appear abandoned, and human activity is recalled by Fertitta like an image from memory, evoked by the intense vibrations of his pictorial style.

Carmelo Fertitta's style, in both his cityscapes and seascapes, presents a perfect fusion of realism and a vivid 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 or maritime reality and the everyday life of simple life. On the other, his refined pictorial technique allows him to convey a sense of existential immediacy to the canvas, thanks to brushstrokes charged with atmospheric vibrations. Light thus reflects on objects, but without interfering with the precise description of reality, and the artist can modulate light and shadow with great naturalism. In his "markets," Carmelo Fertitta's sincere realism is also expressed in his choice of a compositional structure made of clean lines, in diagonals that recede to the right or left, revealing the artist's careful study of reality and a highly rational mind. The palette, made up of light and delicate shades, is in tune with the rendering of a warm sunlight in the afternoon hours of rest.

Carmelo Fertitta was born in 1911 in Gioiosa Marea. He spent his childhood in Tripoli, Libya, where the colors of the earth and the desert influenced his warm, light-filled palette. After graduating from the University of Naples and earning a teaching qualification in drawing and science, he won a public education competition and became principal of a school in Merano. However, the call to arms at the outbreak of war ended his brief scholastic career. After the conflict, he began a managerial career in the Postal Administration, serving as Provincial Director in Macerata, Ancona, and finally, from 1962, in Palermo. His return to Sicily and the colors of his past provided renewed impetus for his artistic production. His first solo exhibition was held in Cagliari at the Galleria "Golfo degli Angeli" in the summer of 1960. From then on, numerous solo and group exhibitions of national importance followed. In 1963 he exhibited at the Galleria Marguttiana in Rome, in 1964 in Milan, and in 1966 again in Rome at the Galleria del Palazzo delle Esposizioni. He won numerous prestigious awards, including first prize for Figurative Arts at the Third National Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Rome in 1972. In 1974, he won another first prize at the Fifth National Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Rome. He continued to win prestigious awards, including the Oscar Accademia Italia in 1985 and 1991, and the first prize "Artists for Peace" at the La Spezia Art Biennale. Carmelo Fertitta passed away in 1995. His works are held at the Institute for the Diffusion of Figurative Arts in Milan, at the Cultural Center of Saint John's University in New York, in the Muretto di Alassio collection of famous artists, in public institutions, art galleries, consulates, art galleries, and in prestigious private and public collections in Italy, France, Germany, and the United States. His graphic works are held at the Max Bollag Modern Art Gallery in Zurich, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Fondazione Europa in Milan, and the Accademia in Turin.

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