The rediscovery of Carlo Fornara, a Divisionist artist, continues. An exhibition in Aosta with eighty works aims to dispel preconceptions

After the success of the Domodossola exhibition, Carlo Fornara (Prestinone, 1871 - 1968) is once again the protagonist of a monographic exhibition dedicated to him: it is the Carlo Fornara e il Divisionismo (Carlo Fornara and Divisionism), scheduled from October 26, 2019 to March 15, 2020 at the Regional Archaeological Museum of Aosta. The exhibition, curated by Annie-Paule Quinsac and directed by Daria Jorioz, presents in the rooms of the Aosta Valley institute a rich display of eighty works including drawings and paintings.

Carlo Fornara, one of the main protagonists of late nineteenth-century Italian art, is regaining the leading role he had in Italian and European art at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thanks to increasing attention from critics and the public, and the major monographic exhibition in Aosta intends to highlight this, and aims to dissolve the reservations and preconceptions born from the perception of Carlo Fornara in the reductive role of heir and imitator of Giovanni Segantini. Fornara, as is known, was his assistant in the summer of 1898, and absorbed the master’s lesson, but this explains neither his adherence to Divisionism nor the evolution of his complex and original path as an artist.

The Aosta exhibition comes to complete the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Fornara’s death, which opened last September in Milan with a selection of his self-portraits and continued, as mentioned, in the historic Casa de Rodis in Domodossola. The events offered an opportunity for a rereading of the artist in the light of the roots of his painting, his Vigezzo world in the first place, then Divisionism, concluding with his poised position in the scenarios of the twentieth century.

The exhibition Carlo Fornara and Divisionism aims to expand and consolidate the conclusions reached so far. The exhibition, in particular, focuses on the two crucial decades of Fornara’s parabola, the last of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth century, and examines the most intense season of his production, in parallel with the genesis and peak of Divisionism in Italy.

Fornara’s Symbolist period, in addition to the masterpiece L’Aquilone, is represented in Val d’Aosta by La leggenda alpina and two oil studies witnessing the evolution of the image, while in the drawings section, some large-format sheets, such as the one for the Simplon road poster and Allegory of the Mountains, tell of an experience that the author later preferred to conceal. Having closed the Symbolist parenthesis, the first decade of the twentieth century is marked by a search for objectivity toward nature, stripped of the expressionism that had dominated the seasons between the end of his vigezzino apprenticeship and the Divisionist maturation that, with En plein air, anticipates by a few months his encounter with Segantini. These are years dedicated to his land, the Vigezzo Valley, to which Fornara tries to give back a face in a synthesis of slow elaborations that stems, as in Angelo Morbelli, from photographic shots and numerous studies. As proof, less developed paintings such as Buckwheat in Flower were also wanted to be exhibited.

Rare are Fornara’s explorations outside his own world. The trilogy of Valle Maggia, in neighboring Switzerland, the result of the 1908 sojourn presented in the exhibition, testifies to a quest aimed at absolute naturalism, in which the technical modifications learned from Segantini in the summer of 1898 are aimed at a realist vision that in no way refers back to the master’s pantheism.

As is evident from the brief correspondence with Pellizza da Volpedo and letters from Morbelli, Carlo Fornara, despite being younger in age, was an early pointillist. His technique reveals an empirical division of tone, predating his seminal meeting with Segantini for the Sankt-Moritz Panorama. After that, the use of pure or semi-pure colors and juxtaposed brushstrokes was enriched by Segantini’s practice of adding metals, gold and silver melted into the fresh impasto, to achieve glimmers that accentuate the luminosity of the environment. The exhibition aspires to provide an understanding of this operational evolution and the link with iconography that justifies it.

Still on the subject of the study of Fornara’s technique and modus operandi, the exhibition also wants to mark a step forward from the point of view of scientific investigation: in fact, Fornara’s complex modus had remained unique among those of his Divisionist colleagues in not having been the subject of a complete diagnostic, until now.

Thanks to the collaboration and support of the Artistic Management of Banca Patrimoni Sella & C., which has been carrying out a project of diagnostic study of Italian artists between the 16th and 19th centuries for about two years, the Aosta exhibition provided an opportunity for the analysis of five key works: The Washerwomen, The Kite, Clear Peace, Light and Shadows, and Autumn’s End in the Maggia Valley. The survey of diagnostic data was entrusted to the expert Thierry Radelet, and the results are presented in a special apparatus of the exhibition catalog, which is thus also meant to be the starting point for future scientific insights and comparative studies.

Completing the catalog is a contribution by Filippo Timo, who investigates and reconstructs the history of Carlo Fornara’s participation in the Venice Biennale, thanks in part to the retrieval of previously unpublished archival materials. The catalog, bilingual Italian-French, contains texts by Annie-Paule Quinsac, Daria Jorioz, and Filippo Timo, is published by Silvana Editoriale, and is on sale at the exhibition for 36 euros.

Visiting hours: daily, except Mondays (closing day), 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Ticket: Full 6 euros, reduced 4 euros, free for children under 18. Subscription with the exhibition Olivo Barbieri. Mountains and Parks scheduled at the Saint-Bénin Center in Aosta from November 15, 2019 to April 19, 2020: 10 euros full, 6 euros reduced.

Pictured: Carlo Fornara, The Kite (1902-1903; oil on canvas, 135 x 154 cm)

The rediscovery of Carlo Fornara, a Divisionist artist, continues. An exhibition in Aosta with eighty works aims to dispel preconceptions

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