On the barn
Critical notes:
For Pellizza from the 1990s onwards it is the light of the Volpedo landscape, the centre of his inner microcosm, that generates the symbolism of the painting. "On the Barn is a clear demonstration of this. At the end of summer 1892, looking at the barn in the shade in front of his studio and beyond it the sun-drenched countryside, he thought of contrasting the end of life with the perpetually regenerated nature. Thus was born this work, one of his masterpieces. "It was supposed to be a rough story", writes Pellizza. A farm worker with no home or family, taken ill, is ending his days on the straw of a barn. The genesis of the painting passes through several drawings and two oil studies entitled "Christian Charity". The change of title, as always with Pellizza, corresponds to a maturation of the subject: the definitive title strips the work of any pathetic implications. "On the Barn" is a meditation on death without ideological or religious superstructures. Behind it, as the drama unfolds, the small green and yellow touches of vegetation and the reassuring geometries of the houses reaffirm the continuity of life. From the backlighting of the foreground to the intense luminosity of the wings, a vitalism asserts itself that owes nothing to the Catholic faith, but seems closer to the myth of the eternal return expressed by Nietzsche in Così parlò Zaratustra.
(source: Information sheet on the exhibition Divisionism. The revolution of light cited above)
Prepared at length during 1892, Sul fienile (On the Barn) was executed during 1893 and exhibited in Milan in 1894, but then taken up again in 1895. Together with the almost contemporary Procession, it was the first painting in which Pellizza sought to meticulously apply Divisionism. Set in the old porch of his house, On the Barn reveals a scrupulous attention to reality.
The painter himself, aware of the importance of this work in his creative process, indicated it as the real beginning of a new pictorial phase, attentive to social themes and capable of establishing a closer relationship with reality thanks to the use of the new technique. He was thus able to effectively communicate his way of feeling and dealing with reality using new, scientifically exact techniques, through the representation of the ...eternal contrast between life and death... a serf who leaves home to earn bread for his family with a pickaxe and a spade and is reduced to dying far from home on the barn - the priest gives him a viaticum... The gold medal won in Munich in 1901 confirmed Pellizza's faith in his work.
(source: Aurora Scotti, Pellizza da Volpedo. Catalogo generale, Milan 1986, card 799 [abridged text">)
