Umberto Lilloni - The River

Landscape has always been a central theme in 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 16th century; and finally with the depiction of every single vibration of light on objects in Impressionism. For the painters of Lombard Chiarismo, of which Umberto Lilloni was one of the leading exponents, landscape was a privileged subject precisely because of the intrinsic possibilities of the use of light, which was central to this group's research.

Umberto Lilloni, a leading exponent of the Lombard Chiaristi, confirms the distinctive features of his artistic approach in this work. Chromatically, we find precisely that immersion in light that characterizes his landscape work, and the landscape's composition clearly displays the customary calligraphic touch, characteristic of a brushstroke technique. Everything is imbued with the same intangible, two-dimensional consistency, typical of Lilloni and other Chiaristi masters. His stylization is also characteristic, always poised between a naïve instinct and the refined mystery of a magical realism, in depicting the buildings, mountains, and vegetation. Everything is rendered subtle in a delicate chromatic balance determined by the transfiguration of light.

Umberto Lilloni was a Milanese painter, born in 1898 and died in 1980. He was one of the leading exponents of the Chiaristi Lombardi. He trained at the Brera Academy and in 1922 received the Pensionato Hayez prize. For a time, he was drawn to the Novecento group, but felt that this style of painting was unsuited to his nature. Thus, by studying Emilio Gola and Lombard landscape painting, he developed a concept of light-ground painting. From 1927 to 1941, Lilloni taught at the Brera Academy, and from 1941 to 1962, he held a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Parma.

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