Vittorio Cusatelli - The Altar Boy

The work can be defined as a genre scene, that is, the depiction of an episode of everyday life that, apparently, lacks any significant element. These types of domestic subjects were long considered minor and only began to spread in Western art starting in the 17th century. Only with the development of 19th-century realism did everyday subjects become considered as important as historical or religious ones. The theme of young priests or altar boys, depicted in curious genre scenes and amusing everyday situations, is quite common among painters between the 19th and 20th centuries (recall the famous cycles of Nino Caffè and Mosè Bianchi).

In this candid and instantaneous portrait of an altar boy, we can appreciate a more spontaneous and instinctive Vittorio Cusatelli, compared to his more balanced compositions. The brushwork used to depict this small scene is rapid, and the forms come to life with a few quick strokes. There is, in short, a prevailing impressionistic quality, indicating the desire to create a work fully in keeping with a realist aesthetic, yet imbued with an expressiveness rooted in the painter's gestures. Color predominates, both in the description of the decontextualized space, through tonal variations, and in the capture of all the light vibrations on the subject, with the dense, structural application of broad brushstrokes.

Vittorio Cusatelli was born in Milan in 1912 and died in Rome in 1999. He studied both at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where he studied under Virgilio Guidi and Bruno Saetti, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he studied with Umberto Coromaldi and Carlo Siviero, where he won a state scholarship for painting in 1933. In 1948, he participated in the National Exhibition of Figurative Arts, the V Quadriennale, at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome, with the painting "Le fornaci" (The Furnaces). He also participated in the VII Quadriennale, held at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 1956.

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