Salvatore Fiume - The Somalis

The human figure has always been at the center of artistic research. Since the classical age, the naturalistic rendering of human anatomy has been a primary goal of painters and sculptors throughout history. The representation of the female figure is an expression of this aspiration, pervasive across all eras and stylistic trends. Indeed, in addition to the naturalistic interpretations of the Renaissance and various classicisms, which aimed for a truthful and detailed representation of the human body, the female figure has also been a central theme in the new aesthetic concepts brought about by the historical avant-garde movements, such as Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism. Beyond the interest in the representation of the female figure, the subject of this work, in particular, demonstrates the painter Salvatore Fiume's taste for the exotic, the distant. Indeed, themes linked to distant geographical areas are recurrent in this artist, used as a pretext for an ethno-folkloric representation of typical costumes.

This work is part of a series of prints inspired by the Oriental or African world, where the protagonist is always the female figure, dressed in characteristic attire. The composition is perfectly suited to Salvatore Fiume's style: the exotic clothing and the subjects' tribal origins, steeped in primordial values, blend perfectly with the stylistic roughness of the Sicilian master's more Expressionist phase. The deliberately coarse linework sketches out the figures, relegating them to a raw state that is synonymous with synthesis and, therefore, expressiveness. Furthermore, both in the subjects and in this language, which tends toward Expressionism, there is certainly a reminiscence of Toulouse-Lautrec's female characters. The color palette, based on bright, almost violent tones, also fits this concept.

Salvatore Fiume was born in 1915 in Comiso and died in Milan in 1997. In addition to being a painter and sculptor, he was also an architect. His career as a painter focused on a reinterpretation of classicism, particularly Renaissance painting and Piero della Francesca. Later, thanks to his success, he traveled extensively around the world, drawing inspiration from exotic folklore, which he rendered in an expressionist manner.

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