Filippo de Pisis

(Ferrara 1896 – Milan 1956)

Paris Road, 1938

Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 54.5 cm

Filippo de Pisis Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Donation Giuseppe Pianori Foundation, inv. 642

Critic Francesco Arcangeli considered the second half of the 1930s the happiest period of De Pisis’s art. Indeed, the works of these years reveal continuous research, the result of the awareness that he could push his language to extreme heights. This is particularly evident in the urban views, where De Pisis’ style imparts an unprecedented character to a subject dear to Impressionist painting: life in the modern metropolis. Here he reduces the descriptive aspect of his painting to the essential, concentrating his inspiration in the gestural fury of his brushstrokes. The artist erects a wall of marks on the facades of the buildings that line the street, and the space that opens up in the background is literally invaded by the excited writing of the brush. Of the bustle of the metropolis at the foot of the buildings, only a fleeting impression remains. The sensual Depisian chromatics are reduced to an essentially abstract black and white. As Arcangeli wrote, observing these views, “consciousness is [spinta] at its most vibrant… As if it were an isolated mirror on which is reflected, faint but stopped forever, the interminable hum of the universe.”

The acquisition of this painting is due to the generous efforts of the Foundation established by Giuseppe Pianori to enrich the city’s artistic heritage. Since 1983, the Foundation has donated twenty-three oil paintings and twenty-four drawings by De Pisis to the museums.