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ABOUT DIVISIONISM

Divisionism, or the juxtaposition of pure colours on the canvas, translates the scientific assumptions of modern optics into painting, enabling it to achieve maximum luminosity or, by contrast, extreme darkness. From the last decade of the 19th century, the technique of colour division was practiced with endless variations—in the pictorial gesture, the ductus of the brushwork, the choice of palette—in France, Italy, and many other countries. These variations differentiated the individual painters, characterizing and rendering them unique and recognizable, regardless of style, poetics, and the subjects depicted.

Initially, critics veered between incomprehension and irony, but ended up underestimating the technical efforts of these artists, appreciating their subjects or poetics but not the pictorial rendering of the works. The overall picture of the situation was completed by the particular historical and political circumstances in which Divisionism came into being in Italy. The tensions that beset the social context led some artists to consciously combine a technically innovative stage of their research with social and political commitment, but without establishing a shared programme and remaining faithful to it.

Milan and the Piedmont region, and more specifically the province of Alessandria, played a key role in Divisionism, right from the very first experiments. Many of the leading practitioners of its early period received their training in Milan, within a milieu marked by a fervid exchange of experiences and knowledge that transcended regional and academic borders. In that last decade of the 19th century, the Tuscan Divisionist group was already well-knit, while in Rome this phenomenon reached its height after the beginning of the new century.

The Pinacoteca of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Tortona has in its collection several masterpieces by this extensive artistic movement, and offers a comprehensive overall vision of the spread of Divisionism. Its story unfolds in the individual rooms, accenting the artists, the thematic areas, and the exhibition and collecting histories that attest to countless connections, including international.

Through works of the highest quality, the tour itinerary brings into focus the elements that from the very outset characterized the Divisionist experience, its leading exponents, and the artists who shared their ideas. The influences of the Milanese Scapigliatura movement, the renewal of figurative painting and the feeling for landscape, the provocation of social protest works, meditation on spirituality, teaching and the legacy left to a new generation of artists and then to the Futurist avant-gardes compose a stringent narrative, enlivened by the colours and light of our best Divisionism.

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