Bathers

The passion and the natural inclination for painting, which manifested from a young age, pushed Luigi Tessoni to follow this path, dedicating his entire life to art. While always remaining linked to Parma, he lived for a long time first in Milan and then in Switzerland, France and Germany. In those years the production of live works and drawings, for which he had a predilection, was intense. Returning to Italy, in Parma, he established his first studio near the Duomo. In the artwork, entitled "The bathers", the bodies in the foreground are assembled, without a defined order, in the center of the canvas: there are four female figures, three naked and one dressed, on the right, framed on the side and represented almost in full. It's a static painting, characterized by an impenetrable frontal gaze, partly illuminated by the purple reflection of the blouse a lady is wearing. The detail of the white glove slipped into the left hand is striking, a detail of style and elegance, which holds the one of the right hand, hidden along the side. The naked, transparent bodies, almost as if they were sketched, hint at gestures, the hair is gathered in large turbans and the faces observe, investigate, reflect. Beyond the female group, the background tends to disappear, pushed to the limits by the imposing bodies: the expanse of blue color, at the bottom right, compact and intense, brings thoughts back to the sea water, while the one above, of gray-blue, to the sky. On the opposite side, in the lower left corner, the green of nature emerges, welcoming and protecting the delicate female bodies. Lucia Fornari Schianchi, recalling the artist, stated: "If every painter is his brush, which crosses all shades and pursues original and unpublished signs, Tessoni can be said to have his own incisive palette and an absolutely intensity, which was based on culture and on that special observation of the source of inspiration, working with light, almost evanescent materials or with a full-bodied dough".