ROME - The Great Bather, huge oil on canvas, shines with its chromatic power in the omba that envelops the room.
Raoul Dufy painted it in 1914 when the innovative drive of the Fauves, the 'beasts' who had fascinated him for the use of free and unconventional color, had already run out.
That work stands out among the artist's early period production, influenced by Cézanne's lesson.
After all, it is enough to observe how the painter portrays himself over time to understand how and to what extent his way of looking at the world is transformed, from the 'classic' approach of 1898 to the face sketched twenty years in twenty years by the color spread with brushstrokes of jet.
'' The painter of joy '' is the name of Dufy in the first major Italian retrospective that the Terzo Pilastro di Emmanuele Emanuele Foundation is dedicating to the master of Le Havre until February 26 at Palazzo Cipolla, in Rome.
In fact, the 160 and more works chosen by Sophie Krebs with the contribution of Nadia Chalbi, make up a truly dazzling mosaic of figures, environments, beaches, boats and seascapes.
"In painting - explained the artist - the essential element is color. Color is a phenomenon of light. For colors, nature uses light. To capture light, the painter uses colors".
To tell the human and artistic story of Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) are 13 sections that end with the 1:10 scale reproduction of the gigantic painting 'The electricity fairy',
the largest in the world, which the artist created in 1937 for the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques in Paris, a 600 square meter mural made up of 250 oil painted panels, each 2 meters by 1.2 meters.
In him, observes the curator, we find a mix of modernity and classicism.
Dufy's conversion to Fauvist painting, she explains, started from a first renunciation, that of Impressionism.
Matisse's painting 'Luxury, calm and voluptuousness' gave him the effect of an electric shock.
'' I understood - said the artist - all the new reasons for painting and Impressionist realism has lost its charm for me at the sight of the imagination introduced into drawing and color ''.
Since then he begins to experiment with colors, not pure color but ''
the livid color, increasingly distant from the local tone ''.
He made it clear not to confuse color with painting: '' Since I make color the creator of light, it is, together with drawing, the great founder of painting, the key element ''.
The trip to Italy was of great importance in 1922, in particular to Sicily where - as he wrote - `` living antiquity can be found ''.
'' This experience - Krebs underlined - stimulated his research between modernity and classicism that permeated his painting ''.
Dufy was also an engraver, illustrator, designer of fashion clothes and fabrics (on display valuable examples come from the Lyon Museum), set designer, decorator, ceramist.
And if he never stopped painting the sea and its landscapes, he
he paid attention to nature, to wheat fields - like the paintings of the 1930s that refer to Van Gogh - to flowers and plants, but also to horse racing and to the public at the racetracks.
'' Of modernity - concludes the curator - she has kept the idea, derived from Cézanne, of associating design, color and composition.
You reject the classical perspective, the anatomy is approximate, the bodies sketched.
What's classic then?
Manual work, the craft and an imaginary that predisposes him to all decorative experiments ''.
(HANDLE).
derived from Cézanne to associate, design, color and composition.
Reject the classical perspective, the anatomy is approximate, the bodies sketched.
What's classic then?
Manual work, the craft and an imaginary that predisposes him to all decorative experiments ''.
(HANDLE).
derived from Cézanne to associate, design, color and composition.
Reject the classical perspective, the anatomy is approximate, the bodies sketched.
What's classic then?
Manual work, the craft and an imaginary that predisposes him to all decorative experiments ''.
(HANDLE).