Pietro PERSICALLI
Gaze into the abyss, c. 1913 - 15
Pietro PERSICALLI
Woman with black cup, 1910 c.
Charcoal and pastel on brown cardboard
610 x 485 mm
On the back, in pencil, non-autograph inscription of the artist: I 1910 ca.
Exhibitions
Mario Finazzi (ed.), Piero Persicalli. Abissi e seduzioni, Rome 2022, p. 2022, no. 50, Plate IV.
Piero Persicalli began his studies at the Munich Academy in 1909, as a student of Habermann and Knirr. After a brief spell in Rome from 1912 to 1913, he moved to Vienna where he made his debut at the “Art Club”. In these early formative years, the artist became seduced by the more visionary aspects of Munich and Viennese secessionist aesthetics,[1] a key element that we find in all his later art.
In these same years, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents in Paris, while after the First World War he was present at the first Biennale di Roma in 1921 and at the Fiorentina Primaverile in 1922 with Cardi in Riva al Mare (Cardoons on the Seashore) and Contadina dei Dintorni di Zara (Peasant Woman from near Zadar). Carlo Carrà wrote that Persicalli, “belongs to that category of our artists who have matured their art abroad.”[2] The year 1925 seems to have marked a peak of Piero Persicalli’s success, who became famous at a national level. In the first edition of Comanducci’s dictionary of painters (1934) he is described as a “lively colourist with a freely divisionist technique”.
This definition is spot-on. In his art, Piero Persicalli’s distinctive line of research seems split in two: on the one hand, a solid mastery of divisionist and late divisionist principles, and on the other, a markedly decorative and experimental approach. It is truly incredible how these two souls never strayed far apart, in fact, in Persicalli’s works they blend to such an extent that they seem a continuation of each other.
The work presented here, Donna con coppa nera, reveals the existence of an additional artistic soul of the painter, who was distinguished by being an eclectic artist predisposed to constant experimentation.
A woman in an imposing frontal position fills almost the entire surface of the brown cardboard. Her eyes gaze at the viewer. In front of her is a large black cup, the co-star of the work. A series of repetitions of the shape of the circle, the great moon behind her, the woman’s earrings and the pendant of her necklace, the cup’s décor, seem to indicate an obvious symbology, the meaning of which eludes the viewer, but imbues the work with mystery.
The influence of North-European expressionist colours is quite evident in this work: the red sky seen behind the woman, or even the blue of her dress, both violent colours, and very much present in the works of Edvard Munch.
This work, dated on the back 1910 ca., may have been painted in Rome in between his sojourns in Munich and Vienna. The influence of the Norwegian artist Munch, whose work at Die Moderne Kunsthandlung in Munich was certainly seen by Persicalli, was to become significant in these years.
[1] Hugo von Habermann was among the founders of the Munich Secession. Heinrich Knirr participated in both the Munich and Viennese Secessions.
[2] Carlo Carrà, Pietro Persicalli, in Catalogo della VIIIa Esposizione Autunnale d’arte, the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Istituto G. Carducci, Como, 1924, op. cit., p. 39.
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