Marco Davanzo (ampezzo, 1872 - 1955) Snowy Landscape, Oil Painting, 1918 

Marco Davanzo (Ampezzo, 1872 - 1955) Snowy Landscape, oil painting, 1918 
The painting, of verist taste, is probably set between Carnia and the Ampezzo Dolomites and is consistent with the characteristics of Marco Davanzo's style, particularly the mountainous subject and the attention to atmosphere. The light seems diffuse and not particularly intense, emphasising a day with the scent of the first winter snows. This accords with the description of ‘crystalline atmospheres’ given for Davanzo's style, which does not necessarily imply direct sunlight, but rather atmospheric clarity even in diffuse light conditions. Painting size oil on cardboard 29x 19 cm approx.

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Marco Davanzo (Ampezzo, 1872 – 1955)
Marco Davanzo trained first at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where he had the opportunity to meet masters of the Venetian school such as Ettore Tito and Pietro Fragiacomo, thanks to whose influence he refined his talent. He subsequently continued his training in Rome, during his military service, and then returned to Venice again.

In his youth, his studies first and then the events of the First World War forced the Carnic painter to move away from his homeland, to which he nevertheless always remained deeply attached: Davanzo's artistic production is strongly focused, in fact, on scenes of daily and domestic life in the upper Tagliamento Valley, on the landscapes of Ampezzo and their slow change to the rhythm of the seasons, on the relationship that binds the mountain man to his land. Landscape painting, therefore, attested not only by the completed works, but also by a rich series of sketches, testimony of inestimable value, as they allow us to observe the evolution of the pictorial language and the stylistic figure of Davanzo. In this regard, the suggestion exercised by Segantini is also very strong, from whose artistic evolution in the direction of Divisionism, however, he soon distanced himself.

In maturity, returning from exile in the Marche among the beloved mountains, significant is the friendship with Giovanni Petris, an artist who fled the city to search in Carnia for a new expressive and existential purity. In the last years of his life, the artist distanced himself from the most modern dictates of twentieth-century painting, withdrawing, introverted and taciturn, to observe a present scenario of new conflicts and devastation (we are in the years of Fascism first and of the Second World War then), incomprehensible to him.

Marco Davanzo therefore represents the most significant example of an artist's complete dedication to reading the naturalistic and human connotations of his environment through painting. In fact, in his vast production, Carnia is depicted in a range of evocative images that enhance its secret poetry. Sterile academicism is thus overcome by the poetic tone, rendered with synthetic brushstrokes, juicy with color and brightness, as can be seen in the work located in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna De Cillia, entitled "Lights and shadows of Carnia": a small oil of 24×30 cm that effectively expresses the intimate atmosphere of the mountain rural world. Davanzo remained faithful to the nineteenth-century naturalism with which he could enhance the landscape of his land, in which he chose to continue to live, until the end of his existence.

To access further data relating to the cataloguing of the painting, consult the website www.beniculturali.regione.fvg.it.