Galleries
Social life: coffee, bar, theater, sport, etc.
If most of the single figures are paintings dedicated to women, when instead we move on to the figures represented in the interiors of taverns or cabarets, in general they are men busy on tastings.
It is perhaps in these settings that Baldessari is exalted and gives his best with skillful games of depth and lights that define space, and with wide chromatic spectra that reach up to apparent monochromes, especially after 1919.
This attitude, which we could define as ‘vernacular’, was gradually defined thanks to the attendance of Rosai, and, with Rosai himself, of the various Tuscan taverns and trattorias. Examples, in this regard, just to name a few, are Bar 6 ( Pub 6), of 1916, Osteria toscana, (Tuscan Tavern) of 1917, Interno + gente + bar (Indoor + people + bar), of 1918 and Giocatori di domino (Dominoes players), 1921, in which the reference to Cèzanne is clear, that is the volumetric, heavy, reconstruction of the image after it had been crumbled by Cubism and Futurism.
And it is an accent the precisely non tuscan Futurism lacks, often more engaged in the modalities of mechanical dynamism, or chromatic decorativism.
It must be said that the inspiration was not only confined to Tuscany, but rather looked for by Baldessari also in its various Parisian travels, between 1919 and 1921, where he found bars and shows united in the various cafes and bistros of the French capital.
However Baldessari applied the theme of social life also to his great passion, the theater, the cabarets, where the setting undergoes a further charm, that of the scene, with its plays of light, the actors, or the dancers, in a whirlwind movement, as well as of the audience wrapped in the faint light of the stalls. See, for example, the illuminated proscenium of Eden, of 1916, or a moment in the scenic action set in Scene per Teatro spaziale (Scenes for a Space Theatre), of 1919. But also moments of almost privacy at the end of the show, as in Ballerina in riposo (Resting dancer), of 1919.
This is an area where Baldessari used all the techniques, from pastel to oil and to collage, which from time to time were functional to the subject.
Finally, a further sociality, here only hinted at, is the representation of outdoor leisures, such as La giostra ( The roundabout), of 1920, or of a work break under the shade of a tree, as in Raccolta delle arance (The oranges harvest), of 1921, and so on.
If most of the single figures are paintings dedicated to women, when instead we move on to the figures represented in the interiors of taverns or cabarets, in general they are men busy on tastings.
It is perhaps in these settings that Baldessari is exalted and gives his best with skillful games of depth and lights that define space, and with wide chromatic spectra that reach up to apparent monochromes, especially after 1919.
This attitude, which we could define as ‘vernacular’, was gradually defined thanks to the attendance of Rosai, and, with Rosai himself, of the various Tuscan taverns and trattorias. Examples, in this regard, just to name a few, are Bar 6 ( Pub 6), of 1916, Osteria toscana, (Tuscan Tavern) of 1917, Interno + gente + bar (Indoor + people + bar), of 1918 and Giocatori di domino (Dominoes players), 1921, in which the reference to Cèzanne is clear, that is the volumetric, heavy, reconstruction of the image after it had been crumbled by Cubism and Futurism.
And it is an accent the precisely non tuscan Futurism lacks, often more engaged in the modalities of mechanical dynamism, or chromatic decorativism.
It must be said that the inspiration was not only confined to Tuscany, but rather looked for by Baldessari also in its various Parisian travels, between 1919 and 1921, where he found bars and shows united in the various cafes and bistros of the French capital.
However Baldessari applied the theme of social life also to his great passion, the theater, the cabarets, where the setting undergoes a further charm, that of the scene, with its plays of light, the actors, or the dancers, in a whirlwind movement, as well as of the audience wrapped in the faint light of the stalls. See, for example, the illuminated proscenium of Eden, of 1916, or a moment in the scenic action set in Scene per Teatro spaziale (Scenes for a Space Theatre), of 1919. But also moments of almost privacy at the end of the show, as in Ballerina in riposo (Resting dancer), of 1919.
This is an area where Baldessari used all the techniques, from pastel to oil and to collage, which from time to time were functional to the subject.
Finally, a further sociality, here only hinted at, is the representation of outdoor leisures, such as La giostra ( The roundabout), of 1920, or of a work break under the shade of a tree, as in Raccolta delle arance (The oranges harvest), of 1921, and so on.
