Wild Flowers

Exhibited in 1936 in the 20th Esposizione internazionale artistica della città di Venezia, as the label on the stretcher indicates, this work depicts a bunch of flowers in a room with a window on the right that adds depth to the composition. While the cut flowers, the symbol of a fleeting existence, allude to the transitory nature of life, the butterfly may suggest a more positive interpretation, since it has been associated with regeneration since antiquity. A few dabs of colour, applied directly to the canvas without preparation, render every species in detail (during his adolescence Filippo De Pisis had studied botany and had compiled a herbarium, which he later donated to the University of Padua). Moreover, these splotches of colour stand out in relief on the pictorial surface. De Pisis had developed this a secco technique during his stay in Paris. He had moved there in 1925 intending to establish close contacts with the intellectuals living in the city. Though he continued to remain artistically isolated De Pisis participated in the Novecento Italiano exhibitions organized by Margherita Sarfatti and had become involved in the Italiani di Parigi group, to whom the 17th Venice Biennale devoted a room in 1930. In 1934, the Galerie des Quatre Chemins mounted an exhibition entitled Fleurs de De Pisis. During those months Massimo Bontempelli (who had written an essay in the exhibition catalogue) visited the artist’s apartment in Rue Servandoni and found it full of flowering plants. Already then it became evident that still life was one of his favourite genres. These works display the influence of Massimo Campigli, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio Morandi and Ardengo Soffici, but also show that De Pisis remained within the tradition of Lombard Naturalism, as can be seen from certain similarities with Composition by Francesco De Rocchi, 1952, to be found especially in the kind of pigment adopted.