Girl at the Window

The painting, which bears stylistic similarities to an 1892 drawing (Head of a Siren, Novara, Galleria d’Arte Moderna Paolo e Adele Giannoni), shows the top half of a young woman looking out of a window as though in response to a call from the street. She is framed between two flowers in the Art Nouveau style on the windowsill. Her pose, leaning slightly forward with her head turned to the right, makes the painting markedly dynamic and this is underscored by the long brushstrokes. The careful application of long streaks of colour to form a compact texture is the result of the artist’s personal development of the scientific principles of Divisionism. Nomellini used variations of this new technique for a number of canvases drawing inspiration from social issues (Piazza Caricamento, 1891, private collection) and the scenery of Genoa (The Gulf of Genoa, 1891, private collection), where he lived from 1890 on. Painted according to the new Symbolist style, the female figure was to reappear at the end of the decade in the triptych entitled Symphony of the Moon (1899, Venice, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’ Pesaro), shown at the 3rd Esposizione internazionale d’arte della città di Venezia.