Bibliografia

Dipinti del XIX secolo 1988; La Scapigliatura 2020, p. 125 (ill.), n. 77

Esposizioni

Milano 1988; Lecco 2020-2021

Scheda opera

Painted around 1887, at the time of the first empirical experiments with the divided technique in the remake of Ave Maria a trasbordo, the small canvas presents a re-edition of the subject of A messa prima (At the first Mass) in the variant of A messa ultima (At the last Mass), a theme further elaborated by Segantini in a pastel, now lost, dating from 1892.
Compared to the 1885 prototype, the scene is strongly re-dimensioned and the spatial values changed: the architecture and the figure of the priest, in the narrowing of the point of view, take on a greater role, while the luministic and chromatic values are tuned to warmer ranges, linked to the evening light, with the accentuation of the contrast between the staircase, totally immersed in shadow, and the façade and the sky marked by a light and pinkish backlight effect. It is this contrast that measures the space and gives depth to the flight of steps, restoring the slow gait of the priest who doubles the meditative figure of A messa prima. If in the latter canvas, the painter concentrated on rendering the emotional value of the morning light, in A messa ultima he decants the emotional value, the mood of the landscape, of the light, of the late afternoon atmosphere. Compared to the impasto painting that characterises the larger work, in the version under examination the pictorial material is given a more minute ductus that leaves, in some cases, elongated brushstrokes of pure colour evident. Thus, the blue sky is marked by a variety of fast, wandering touches that are inscribed between the subtle variations of blues, now deeper, now lighter, and the pure touches of pinkish, pale yellow and white that literally make the pictorial surface vibrate, restoring the truth of the vespertine light. And the same vibration also recurs in the shaded areas: the luminous shadows of the volutes are blue, rapid bluish brushstrokes of varying gradation run along the balustrade and flank the whitened and pinkish luminescences on the smooth, rounded edges of the steps.

(NICCOLO’ D’AGATI)