Cow and farmer

A small painting, which is also a sketch to study the movement of the animal. The scene is seen from above and the cow twists on itself, probably to escape the farmer who is behind him and who clumsily moves cautiously among the tall grass. It is an early work, in the period in which the world of the countryside provides the artist with the subjects of a domestic iconography well known to him, which allows him to experiment with both the layout of the images and their realization, starting 'start from the profiles, from the silhouettes to then look for, acquired experience and greater skill, more concrete forms, as is the case of this bovine which is not yet fully proportioned in the torsion, in the body and in the stability on the legs, but already moves with greater freedom and effectiveness and therefore, in the end, with an immediate communication of the movement and of the message that the image should suggest, for which the research of the pictorial language focuses precisely on the body of the cow, on its definition with a color that underlines the marked distortion of movement in the neck, in the patches on the body, on the opposite side, to create a chromatic space around the back and body of the animal c he accentuates the dynamic sense of the accompanied rotation, only in the essential points, with a kind of double outline. It is also worth emphasizing the view of the scene from above which brilliantly resolves a narrative synthesis, concentrating the two otherwise separate characters in their individuality. It is probably due to the cinema, which Ligabue particularly loved, the suggestion of this solution that becomes the synthesis of an event, for which the figure of the farmer is resolved with an awkward appearance, with a few synthetic brushstrokes, for which the man almost seems scarecrow and is in no way recognizable in a real individuality, but simply in its function of iconographic narration. This solution of the human figures, which is typical from the beginning of Ligabue's artistic career, will continue and continue throughout his life, since the presence of the farmer will simply be an allusion to the world in which the scene is managed, but that what will interest the artist will always be the real and emotional situation involving animals. In this case it is the cow's desire for freedom and its will to remain in the middle of the greenery, the grass, its natural element and the threatening character that the advance of the farmer represents.