Filippo Palizzi

(Italian, 1818 - 1899)

Signed lower right. "With Filippo Palizzi we have the first beginning of pictorial realism. After the Posillipo school, the observation of the truth becomes the object of pictorial speculations. Since the 1950s he has been interested in photography, which he practices with in-depth technical knowledge. He used the photos that he developed himself, as observation and models for his paintings. In this way he developed an immediate and direct naturalism, reconnecting with the Flemish animalist school of the 17th century, but he pays much more attention to details, combining neoclassical dignity with genre painting of popular costumes. His trip to Europe and Paris (1955) allows him to perfect his luministic investigation. On his return he stays in Florence. Here he meets Giovanni Fattori and the Macchiaioli. He states that what one must look for in modern painting is subtlety and totality, with these concepts Palizzi defines his poetics which is based on his personal conception of the "macchia" meaning that the "totality" had to be the expression of the whole, of the whole of the macchiaioli. which had to be completed by the finesses, or by the rendering of perceptive subtleties. The chiaroscuro landscapes had to be subjected to minute attention, of a micrographic nature to the effects of light and had to be realized with the tip of the brush to finally express the totality of the work. The painting in question is a typical example of this pictorial conception. The final product of what he himself defined as a cosmic naturalism." STUDIO ASOR