Carlo Servolini, Risicatori livornesi, 1940
Tappa

Carlo Servolini, Risicatori livornesi, 1940

Etching on paper, acetate sheet of mm 244x340; sheet mm 490x700    

signed on acetate bottom right: Carlo Servolini ; signed on the sheet bottom right: Carlo Servolini ; signed on the sheet bottom left: Risicatori livornesi (etching ) 7/10     Collesalvetti 

Exhibitions, Villa Carmignani, 27 November 2004 - 2 January 2005, Livorno 2004.     

Bibliography F. Cagianelli (by), Carlo and Luigi Servolini. L’arte, il pensiero, le    tecniche , catalogo della mostra (Collesalvetti, Villa Carmignani, 27 November 2004 - 2 January 2005), Livorno 2004, p. 114-115 (repr.); F. Cagianelli, Carlo Servolini 1876-1948. Dipinti, acquarelli, incisioni , Cinisello Balsamo, Milano 2006, p. 209 (repr.)     

The etching entitled Risicatori livornesi appears remotely joined to the warlike climate of several paintings dedicated to the theme of the arrisicatori, “daring, and courageous men, with powerful bodies and faces cooked by seawater and libeccio winds” –  as Gino Mazzanti describes them (G. Mazzanti, Carlo Servolini etching master , in “Le Venezie e l’Italia”, X, 1, 1971, pp. 30-34).    

Compared to these paintings, set at an expressive register of solemn drama, Servolini proceeds with the etching to the caricature emphasising of features, supported by the incisiveness of the etching stroke.   

Like in other  moments in the graphic transposition of the themes addressed in painting, the artist flavours the folklore investigation, using the specific nature of etching technique, to the point he becomes the interpreter of a style that is unanimously recognised by the critics of the time as being openly Expressionist, to the point of conjuring up “the powerful humanity of Romanesque artists and early German and Flemish engravers” Carlo Servolini, in “L’Ulivo”, 2, March 1949, pp. 3-7).