Falling Leaves

Angelo Dall'Oca Bianca in tune with the culture of the late 19th century documents, especially through photographic plates, the themes of the disease, both mental and physical. There are many plates that deal with hospitals, asylums and hospices, as if to express the artist’s need for closeness to the poorest and most marginalized strata of society. Dall'Oca rarely mentions these themes in his paintings: the image of the hospice is taken up only in two almost identical paintings entitled "Falling Leaves". A first version of the painting, exhibited in 1896 at the III Exposición de Bellas Artes é Industrias Artisticas in Barcelona, was awarded the gold medal and purchased by the museum of the Catalan city. A second version was made in 1898 and exhibited in Venice in 1912 to join the collection of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna by will of Dall'Oca. The painting "Falling Leaves" expresses the theme of old age, merging elements of the realistic register with elements of the symbolic register. In the courtyard of a hospice the light of the sunset surrounds the figures of three old men attracted by the rapid and subdued march of a female figure, a nun whose head wrapped in a white veil seems to be surrounded by a bright halo. The composition and the chromatic rendering contribute to the symbolic interpretation of the work, without taking away the inspiration of realism.