Reclining Nude (1917)

Signed lower right: “P. Marussig”

Bibliography: Piero Marussig. General Catalogue, edited by N. Colombo, C. Gian Ferrari, E. Pontiggia, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale, 2006, p. 131, no. 207 (illustrated); A. Tiddia, Piero Marussig, Trieste, Fondazione CRTrieste, 2015, p. 131, no. 222 (illustrated).

Among the most intense works of Piero Marussig’s expressionist phase, Nudo sdraiato (Reclining Nude) represents the maximum adherence to the colourism of secessionist ancestry. Painted in 1917, together with Sleeping Woman, it is the painting in which the artist moves beyond the need for arabesque lines and à plat colour, set as if in a Matisse-style cloisonné, and arrives at more substantial compositions, which thrive on full, constructive brushstrokes, derived directly from the study of Cézanne. This trend, which began in 1916, also includes other solutions such as bold views, skewed perspectives, photographic cuts, and views from above or from the side, giving rise to images that are unstable and restless, yet at the same time intimate, sensual and full of modernity.

The Reclining Nude, in particular, is the result of a combination of influences drawn from the Viennese Secession, from the lively and nervous nudes of Egon Schiele, not so much in style as in the choice of subject matter and the disturbing aura, to the cold, rough and incisive colourism of Koloman Moser. There are also clear post-impressionist influences: the angular perspective of Van Gogh and the aforementioned oblique and charged brushwork of Cézanne. This was an intense, strongly expressionist phase, made up of a weave of seductive and scenographic signs and subjects, counterbalanced by a more reflective production – but still of vital Secessionist origin – made up of gardens, meadows, plants and trees in energetic colours and without human presence.

In this nude, yellows are combined with blues and purples in a decorative and chromatic richness that envelops the figure and makes it one of the artist’s most internationally acclaimed works. In fact, not only do the restless moods of Trieste during the war years emerge, but also, and above all, the expressionist vigour and secessionist graphics resulting from Marussig’s formative stays in Vienna, Munich and Paris: “the Munich and French elements merge with expressionist influences in a sort of personal mannerism, which is difficult to define precisely, but which can be considered a summary of his experiences”[1].

[1] A. Podestà, La vita e l’opera, in Piero Marussig, exhibition catalogue (Galleria d’Arte Genova, September-December 1941), Genoa 1941.

Elena Lago