"Il Pergolato" di Lega

Speranza



Oil on canvas, 75 X 93.5 cm.

In 1861, Diego Martelli, a regular at the Caffè Michelangiolo, inherited a vast estate along the coast south of Livorno, and it was to Catiglioncello, to the Piagentina countryside on the southern outskirts of Firenze, and to the fertile flatlands of the Maremma in southern Toscana that the "Macchiaioli" went for inspiration.

Silvestro Lega's "Il Pergolato", showing a group of women taking confee in their garden after lunch, was done in the Piagentina, at a time when the revolutionary passions and optimism that reigned in the years 1848-60 had given way to a sense of melancholy and disappointment at the political compromises and stagnation that followed the unfication. "Il Pergolato" epitomises perfectly Cecione's remark about capturing the 'feeling' in the mind of the painter'.