Giovanni Fattori

This volume, which accompanies the new exhibition in Lugano, offers the complete graphic output of Giovanni Fattori for the first time organised in a scientific manner: an important milestone in the history of nineteenth and twentieth century graphics and of paramount importance when evaluating the production of this key figure in the development of nineteenth century Italian art.
The course taken in this monograph is aimed at underlining the significance of the principal thematic areas within Fattori's graphic works, and the approach taken is iconographical rather than chronological so as to emphasise and provide an in-depth examination of the various specific themes taken up by Fattori in his engravings. Among these: "Maremma cowherds", "Tuscan peasants", "Maremma landscapes", "Rustic roads", "Portraits of friends, relatives and acquaintances", "Studies of animals", "Peasants and cattle", "Cattle and donkeys", "Carabinieri on horseback", "Soldiers and recruits", "Pastures", "Swamps", "Seascapes, boats and beaches", "Views of Tuscany".
The volume, which illustrates Fattori's artistic output through the etchings of his entire career, consists of 194 works originating from important Italian museums such as the Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori in Leghorn, the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of Pisa University and the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe "Achille Bertarelli" in Milano: an extraordinary collection of engravings that are transformed, image after image, from the testimony of a way of life into archetypes of a modern iconography, far from giving a mere aesthetic view of important moments of the past, whether they deal with the Italian Risorgimento or faithfully depict the hardworking peasants of the Maremma.