FNetti

The Coachmen masquerade, 1877

Oil on canvas, cm 83x130

Signed on the lower right «FNetti»

Santèramo in Colle, private collection

A recent documentation talks about the work. Domenico Maselli cites this painting in an article from May 30^th in 1952, on the newspaper «Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno», dating it in 1877 and calling it an «unpublished document», exhibited at the Retrospective of Francesco Netti, organized on occasion of the II National Painting Exhibition of the “May of Bari”. So, in this way, suggesting, apparently an empty documentary related to its history, at least until that moment. The work was then exhibited in Rome in 1953, at the exhibition L’arte nella vita del Mezzogiorno d’Italia. Mostra di arti figurative e arti applicate del Mezzogiorno, shown in the catalogue at n. 4, in room number 17 and owned by A. La Rocca from Roma.

From this moment on, The coachmen Masquerade makes his tracks disappear. Only in 2023, it appears again, on occasion of the inaugural exhibition of the newborn Art Gallery “Francesco Netti”, in Santèramo in Colle, made by the Cultural Association APS Francesco Netti.

Already from the title, we understand well the theme of the painting, the Carnival, whose suggestions are very dear to Netti and declined in his production through ways and a style always different. The harsh colours are, but harmoniously juxtaposed, the real protagonists of the scene, linked by a brushstroke at times decomposed and not particularly defined, making the atmosphere particularly mysterious: stylistic elements typical of paintings of the seventies, characterized by a certain freedom and boldness, perhaps a sign of a greater artistic awareness matured by Netti. From a compositional point of view it is similar to After the party (1864), with which it shares the theme of masks and it seems that here, there is also the female figure dressed in black, slumped on Pierrot/Pulcinella in the first case. The interruption of the festival could be a common link of both works: an illness or sleep where the characters of the central group seem to have fallen, – culminating with the figure in slightly foreshortened blue, summit of a human pile – draws attention of the most curious, who nevertheless continue to toast, as shown by the man with the cylinder, which raises his glass in a festive mood. Stylistically closer to contemporary works, such as La sortie du bal (1872), Orgy and work (1870), he also shares the playful aspect of the theme, compared to the darker atmosphere and the moralizing tone of the 1864 painting. The attitudes of the protagonists are well differentiated and even where the brushstroke becomes more material and the tones juxtaposed – as for the masked figures on the extreme right without physiognomic features that arouse feelings of unease – the characterization of the characters is rendered intensely. Emblematic are the faces of the two men to the right of the figure with the cylinder: the expressions recall the typical theatrical masks of classical Greek and Latin, comedy and tragedy, as to highlight the excitement of the party, that in Netti’s carnival paintings is always characterized by an unexpected bittersweet taste.

Overall, it is possible to consider The coachmen Masquerade, an extremely modern and international work, close to the stylistic results of future expressionist painting, and that can recall the atmospheres recreated by James Ensor.