Arcadia

Introduced by Piero Gobetti to the school of Felice Casorati, the most important painter working in Turin at the time and leader of the city’s pictorial avant-garde, Carlo Levi began his artistic career by addressing allegorical subjects. The master’s stylistic influence is evident in this work, where geometry strives for the perfection of Casorati’s pure volumes. Exhibited at the 1924 Venice Biennial, it shows a naked youth lying on the floor with a flute in his left hand. Levi then joined Gigi Chessa, Nicola Galante, Francesco Menzio, Enrico Paulucci and Jessie Boswell in the Gruppo dei Sei in 1929 and exhibited work with them in various cities of Italy and Europe. An artist, writer and political activist, he regarded painting as a tool for knowledge of reality in close connection with his ideas and writings on art as well as his political commitment. (Transl. by Paul Metcalfe per Scriptum, Roma)