Medardo Rosso
1858 Turin - 1928 Milan
Rosso was an Italian sculptor. In Milan since 1970, he began to discover around 1880, in 1882-83 he attended the Brera Academy, from which he was estranged due to his impatience with traditional teaching. Among the artists of the time he looked above all to Cremona, Ranzoni and Grandi, but for his training the positivist and naturalist culture of the late Lombard scapigliatura was also very important. His early works tend to "search for truth" like adherence to the optical datum, including the psychological-character qualities of the portrait, and are immediately characterized by the choice of contemporary themes: the marginalized, common people, modern life (El looch, 1881-82, Rome, Gall. Naz. D 'Arte Mod., Impression d'omnibus, 1884, destroyed). The tendency towards a vision where objectivity and subjectivity interpenetrate, without clear barriers between physical and mental, becomes clearer in works such as Lo scaccino (1883, Barzio, Mus. Ross) and La portinaia (1883, Rome, Gall. Naz. D 'Arte Mod.): The positivist reference to concrete data persists and the search for reality takes shape in the fusion of the figure with the atmosphere, through a sort of abolition of contours. His first stay in Paris dates back to 1885-86, when historical impressionism is in the process of dissolving, he returned there in 1889 (until 1914), coming into contact with anti-naturalistic cultural tendencies (symbolist synthesis, painting by nabis) who, in the context of Rosso's attention to the phenomenon and to the visual sensation, accentuated the psychological dynamics and the latent vitalistic energies (the Rieuses series, 1890-91, one in Barzio, Mus. Rosso). The shift of attention from content values (typical of the Milanese years) to the emotional recording of optical data was defined in the mid-90s with works such as Man who reads (1893-95, Milan, Coll. Mattioli), Bookmaker (1894 ) and Conversazione in giardino (1896, both in Barzio, Mus. Ross), characterized by that highly synthetic research of links between sculpture and environment and between environment and subject that, fifteen years later, would have struck the futurist Boccioni, and reaches an extreme outcome in Madam X (1896_ Venice, Gall. D'Arte Mod.). After the episode of Ecce puer (1906, Milan, Gall. D'Arte Mod.), The only one that shows some consonance with the symbolist culture, the last activity of Rosso, accompanied by an abundant graphic production (views urban and landscape), shows a renewed attention to the naturalistic <>.
Rosso was an Italian sculptor. In Milan since 1970, he began to discover around 1880, in 1882-83 he attended the Brera Academy, from which he was estranged due to his impatience with traditional teaching. Among the artists of the time he looked above all to Cremona, Ranzoni and Grandi, but for his training the positivist and naturalist culture of the late Lombard scapigliatura was also very important. His early works tend to "search for truth" like adherence to the optical datum, including the psychological-character qualities of the portrait, and are immediately characterized by the choice of contemporary themes: the marginalized, common people, modern life (El looch, 1881-82, Rome, Gall. Naz. D 'Arte Mod., Impression d'omnibus, 1884, destroyed). The tendency towards a vision where objectivity and subjectivity interpenetrate, without clear barriers between physical and mental, becomes clearer in works such as Lo scaccino (1883, Barzio, Mus. Ross) and La portinaia (1883, Rome, Gall. Naz. D 'Arte Mod.): The positivist reference to concrete data persists and the search for reality takes shape in the fusion of the figure with the atmosphere, through a sort of abolition of contours. His first stay in Paris dates back to 1885-86, when historical impressionism is in the process of dissolving, he returned there in 1889 (until 1914), coming into contact with anti-naturalistic cultural tendencies (symbolist synthesis, painting by nabis) who, in the context of Rosso's attention to the phenomenon and to the visual sensation, accentuated the psychological dynamics and the latent vitalistic energies (the Rieuses series, 1890-91, one in Barzio, Mus. Rosso). The shift of attention from content values (typical of the Milanese years) to the emotional recording of optical data was defined in the mid-90s with works such as Man who reads (1893-95, Milan, Coll. Mattioli), Bookmaker (1894 ) and Conversazione in giardino (1896, both in Barzio, Mus. Ross), characterized by that highly synthetic research of links between sculpture and environment and between environment and subject that, fifteen years later, would have struck the futurist Boccioni, and reaches an extreme outcome in Madam X (1896_ Venice, Gall. D'Arte Mod.). After the episode of Ecce puer (1906, Milan, Gall. D'Arte Mod.), The only one that shows some consonance with the symbolist culture, the last activity of Rosso, accompanied by an abundant graphic production (views urban and landscape), shows a renewed attention to the naturalistic <>.
