Eugenio Cecconi, painter of the Maremma, on display in Forte dei Marmi

One of the most important retrospectives dedicated to Eugenio Cecconi (Livorno, 1842 - Florence, 1903) a painter friend of the Macchiaioli and authentic witness of a Tuscany made up of countryside, hunting and everyday peasant life, comes to life in Forte dei Marmi from May 31 to November 9, 2025. The exhibition, entitled Eugenio Cecconi. Days of Hunting and Color, takes place at Forte Leopoldo I and is promoted by the Municipality of Forte dei Marmi together with the Society of Fine Arts, under the curatorship of Elisabetta Matteucci.

The exhibition offers an itinerary divided into seven thematic sections, designed to restore the expressive complexity of an artist capable of transforming the simple and austere life of the Maremma countryside into art. The exhibition itinerary, dense with works selected from different moments of Cecconi’s career, embraces multiple genres and subjects: from imposing landscape views to intense hunting scenes, from animal portraits to representations of the “proud women” of the rural world.

Telemaco Signorini, who was Cecconi’s friend and sincere admirer, had this to say of his famous dog portraits, “There are people in Cecconi’s dogs.” An observation that accurately captures the psychological gaze with which the artist also approached animal subjects. “When Cecconi paints a dog,” Signorini added, "he makes a moral portrait of it and makes clear what he has already done and what he is about to do. A sensitivity that also extends to thehuman universe, especially in scenes of rural life where every gesture, every expression, is captured with empathy and without rhetoric.

Through his brush, Cecconi has been able to capture the silent dignity of rural life. In his paintings, women - washerwomen, haymakers, harvesters, ferrywomen, chicken or orange sellers - take on the stature of authentic “Madonnas of the harvest,” portrayed with features that recall an Etruscan beauty and epic austerity. Their faces tell stories, labors, pride and rootedness to the land, offering a powerful social portrait of an era and a territory.

In his hunting scenes, one of his most beloved themes, Cecconi distinguishes himself by a style far removed from that of coeval English official painting. Here it is not a matter of cold aristocratic documentation, but of a lived participation, of an experience that the artist really shared, returning to the canvas its vibrant emotion, tension and almost archaic rituality. Hunting, in Cecconi, becomes a social ritual, a collective experience, a pretext to tell the story of man immersed in nature and its primordial rhythms.

Elisabetta Matteucci, curator of the exhibition, emphasizes how "in Cecconi an intimate bond with Nature and in particular with the genius loci, the generating spirit of the creative cue, is evident.“ This bond emerges strongly from the first sections of the exhibition, such as ”Light of Etruria," in which landscapes and rural scenes related to the Tuscan areas dear to the artist, between Castiglioncello, where Diego Martelli worked, and Ceppato di Lari, are depicted. Works such as Il ritorno delle fienaiole or Caccia alle folaghe restore the slow and solemn rhythm of life in the fields, enriched by a lyrical, intimate light.

Next, in the section “Maremma fatale e fatata,” we enter the wild heart of a mythical and unspoiled territory. Here Maremma is represented not only in its physical dimension, but as a space of the spirit, populated by primal forces, a place of challenges and introspection. It is the territory of hunting, toil and harmony, where painting becomes a participatory and authentic gesture.

In the central sections of the exhibition - “Chasing the Prey” and “Giving Way to the Boots” - the practice of hunting is transformed into a narrative and poetic key. Cecconi stages the hunt with an intensity that oscillates between lyricism and epic. The moulting of the dogs, caught in the rush of the chase, the tension-filled wait, the preparations, the journey, the return: each moment becomes an opportunity to narrate the deep identity of a rural community, its shared rituals, its sense of belonging.

The works in these sections testify to the artist’s ability to capture movement, vital energy, but also to freeze the moment with an almost photographic precision. Dogs, hunting and life companions, are among Cecconi’s most beloved subjects and find their place in the section “The Faithful Friend.” Here, through portraits rich in nuance and meaningful gestures, the animal becomes a mirror of man, a repository of emotions and thoughts. The tension of the tip, the patience of waiting, the intelligence in the gaze: everything is returned with an impressive mimetic force, capable of moving even the contemporary viewer.

Finally, in the section “The Proud Women,” a gallery of portraits opens paying homage to female strength in the agricultural world. With a sensibility rooted in Renaissance tradition but with a modern gaze, Cecconi celebrates female figures as true guardians of the land. They are industrious, determined women, sculpted by fatigue but animated by a natural elegance that the artist knows how to capture and sublimate.

The exhibition does not intend to limit itself to presenting Cecconi’s pictorial work. Rather, it intends to reconstruct the identity of a complex artist, who was also a writer, poet and hunter, animated by a sensibility that Guido Biagi, his friend, described as “a sensitive and working soul.” Through Cecconi’s paintings, words and emotions, a portrait is composed of a man who knew how to live his own time with intensity and transfigure it into art, giving voice to those who had none, making eternal what is often considered ephemeral: the daily gesture, the toil, the waiting, the breath of nature.

Eugenio Cecconi, painter of the Maremma, on display in Forte dei Marmi

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