The Flock

This large work can be identified with The Flock, exhibited at the artist’s solo show staged on the occasion of the 1906 Esposizione Nazionale di Belle Arti di Milano. Some years later Carcano executed a watercolour replica entitled Humanity which was displayed in the 1911 Esposizione della Società degli Acquerellisti Lombardi. In a composition divided by the line of the horizon, the painter depicts a flock advancing towards the sun as it rises: a metaphor of the path followed by the faithful as they seek redemption through Christ. It was no coincidence that this work was compared to the painting Divine Shepherd (private collection) in 1906. The theme of religion and a focus on mystic and symbolic iconographies were not new in Filippo Carcano’s oeuvre. From the last decade of the 19th century, he treated modern Symbolist themes alongside the more traditional ones of Naturalism. In 1897 he won the Prince Umberto Award with Christ Kissing Humanity (private collection) at the 2nd Milan Trienniale, and his return to such subjects in the following years culminated in The Flock, in which the style is stripped of all naturalist accents and the colour reduced solely to grey and deep blue tones. The pictorial handling is characterised by very short brushstrokes that graze the canvas where the forms emerge from the grey preparatory ground through the juxtaposition of dabs of colour. The refined technique reveals the considerable artistic talents of this painter who, after training in the school of Lombard Naturalism and becoming one of its leading exponents, was still a great innovator in his mature period.