The Circus Artist (1919)

Signed upper left: ‘P. Marussig’;

on the reverse: ‘Nuova Codebo Galleria d’Arte, Turin (no. 1908)’

Exhibitions: Trieste 1972, no. 39; Milan 1984, no. 15

Bibliography: Piero Marussig, periodo triestino, exhibition catalogue edited by G. Marussi (Trieste, Palazzo Costanzi, 15 May – 6 June 1972), no. 39; Piero Marussig, una raccolta privata: opere dal 1904 al 1937, exhibition catalogue edited by R. Barilli (Milan, Galleria Philippe Daverio, February 1984), no. 15; Arte moderna. Catalogo dell’arte moderna italiana, no. 22, Milan, Mondadori, 1986, p. 337; Piero Marussig. General Catalogue, edited by N. Colombo, C. Gian Ferrari, E. Pontiggia, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale, 2006, p. 142, no. 277 (illustrated); A. Tiddia, Piero Marussig, Trieste, Fondazione CRTrieste, 2015, p. 142, no. 242 (illustrated).

The Circus Artist, oil on canvas painted by Piero Marussig in 1919, represents the mature outcome of his secessionist phase, which developed from the early 20th century and continued until the post-war period, when his painting gradually moved towards a marked classicism, the result of a return to order. In this transitional phase, the decorative influence of the Nabis school is still evident in the oblique, arabesque lines of the solid contours of the circus performer’s figure. However, the colour is no longer limited to à plat application, but is enriched by a more articulated structure: the chromatic backgrounds, small oblique and constructive pieces, evoke the lessons of Cézanne, which also return in the blue tones and in the colour as a link between plastic tension and decorative freedom. Volume, attention to design, chromatic sensitivity and decorative tension are the four fundamental guidelines of Marussig’s language, ideally traceable to the models of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Denis and Bonnard. These references, however, never translate into quotation, but are reworked into an autonomous and original synthesis, which constitutes the distinctive feature of Marussig’s poetics and evokes not only his important stay in Paris in 1905, but also his training in Munich and Vienna and the influence of Jugendstil. This is particularly true of his very last phase in Trieste before 1920 and his move to Milan, when he had not yet succumbed to the powerful chiaroscuro that would characterise the classicist works created within the Novecento group.

The Circus Artist therefore represents a last glimmer of the avant-garde, encapsulated in the abandoned figure of the woman in costume, immersed in the same dreamy atmosphere as the Dormiente of 1916, with a soft silhouette, constructed with the same oblique and restless brushstrokes but also with the same perspective treatment, made up of angles and curves that follow one another, creating a pressing rhythm. It is Marussig’s last work in that highly personal language, which is undoubtedly influenced by the Secessionist and Post-Impressionist traditions and therefore full of international references. The work focuses on a close-up shot, constructed through a palette dominated almost entirely by reds and blues. The brushstrokes, dense and structuring, are not limited to descriptive rendering but become a tool for articulating volumes and shapes. This solution, while evoking a synthesis between the experiences of Cézanne and Van Gogh, is a fully autonomous and distinctive expression of Marussig’s pictorial lexicon. The circus woman, an enchanted figure, wrapped in her red bodysuit and those poetic cloisonné contours, has fallen tenderly asleep behind the scenes, her hair still tied up and her lipstick still on her lips; behind the big top, next to her drum. An iconography that has always been loved by artists, from Picasso to Mancini, from Daumier to Seurat, the figure of the acrobat embodies a joyful but also melancholic sense of vertigo, of that transitory and ephemeral fun, which here is summed up in a moment of delicate intimacy.

Elena Lago