The Life (1905)

signed and dated lower right “E. Tito 905”

provenance: Farina Collection

signed and dated lower right ‘E. Tito 905’.

provenance: Farina Collection

Notes: The work is the model for the larger painting entitled La vita (Life), shown at the Milan Fine Arts Exhibition in 1906 (p. 56, n. 19), at the Buenos Aires – Montevideo – Valparaiso Exhibition in 1907 (p. 31, n. 5), and then in the personal room of the Venice Biennale in 1909 (p. 42, n. 2, ill. p. 30).

The first idea in 1905 for the larger painting – unfortunately lost – La vita, presented by Ettore Tito on two occasions in Italy, first at the 1906 Milan National Exhibition and then at the 1909 Venice Biennial, where he had a personal room, this oil on panel undoubtedly corresponds to that very fresh production of paintings ‘with many figures whose pleasantness derives solely from the colour and not from the anecdote dear to the old genre paintings’[1], as stated in Ugo Ojetti’s critical notes on the 1909 Venice Biennial.

An important piece for reconstructing the history of the painting is provided by the prestigious historical collection of origin: the Farina collection. The engineer Daniele Farina (1807-1886) from Bonate Sotto (Bergamo), who in the 19th century had been one of the most affectionate patrons and collectors of Giovanni Carnovali known as il Piccio and other Lombard authors such as Pietro Ronzoni, left a priceless artistic heritage to his family at his death, who continued to collect works at least until October 1921, the year in which an inventory was drawn up, before the estate was divided among the various branches of the Farina family, which also included Ettore Tito’s table.

His mastery as a narrator of popular Venetian life, but also of the broader and more universal motion of existence that flows and manifests itself in small daily chores, is here unfolded in a precious panel, a model and first idea of the definitive one, with which, as is often the case in other paintings by the painter, it presents some differences, which constitute the true uniqueness of the work – together with being, in fact, the only evidence of a painting of a location that is today unknown. In the panel under examination, a woman from the back and one standing with a newborn child in her arms, far from being a mere tranche de vie of the Venetian countryside, with the water and lush vegetation and fauna of the lagoon, illustrate an allegorical reference to birth, to the beginning of a new life cycle, but also to the fertile energy of the eternal feminine. The final painting has two more women, one facing us, with another child in her arms and her long dark hair falling over her torso, and the other with her back turned, next to her friend, whose conspicuous dress bow we notice. In addition, there are some children in the background in the distance and a peasant on the right; while in the model some geese animate the scene together with the vermilion drape resting on the bench. The painting, which fits perfectly into the stylistic evolutions of which the author was a protagonist in the early 20th century, relies completely on the expressive qualities of a dynamic brushstroke, divided between the small vertical and oblique dots describing the background and wider backgrounds adopted to define the figures. A post-Impressionism with an international flavour, which helps to give impetus to the preponderant presence of nature and the feminine vitality of the women in order to also exalt their inner motions and the bonds that exist between like-minded souls involved in the same destiny. In this painting, as in many others of the same period, Ettore Tito adopts a suspended and lyrical realism, in which the figures stand out for their formal elegance, but also for the subtle symbolic substratum that gently pervades the atmosphere and the landscape behind.

[1] U. Ojetti, Pittori italiani, in VIII Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte in Venezia 1909. Critical notes by Ugo Ojetti, Milan, Fratelli Treves Editori, 1909, p. 12.

Elena Lago