Discovery and action

1In 2004, after a series of passages of ownership, a group of fifteen paintings depicting theme of fishing arrived in the Rome warehouses of the Council for Research in Agriculture and Analysis of Agrarian Economics (CREA). Five of the canvases, very large, had been stored without stretchers and tightly rolled up under gravely damaging conditions (fig. 1). The full set of paintings were eventually identified as almost the entirety of the Fishing Cycle, executed by Umberto Coromaldi for the Fishing Pavilion of the 1911 International Exposition in Rome while one of the six fishing scenes has not been found. The discovery brought to light a work of extraordinary historic and artistic value, a significant testimony to the varied artistic climate in Rome at the beginning of the 20th century. The paintings are executed in a language of refined elegance and in a style blending tradition with modernity, reflecting Coromaldi’s interests in expressive immediacy and truthfulness of narrative.

The 1911 International Exposition in Rome and the Fishing Pavilion

5Among the temporary exhibitions, the most significant was the Ethnographic and Regional Exhibition, a grand retrospective of the traditions, arts and crafts of the national territories, as well as their flourishing productive activities. At first at the international level, this exhibition took form as a double concentric path of pavilions connected by tree-lined avenues, in an area at the north-western extremity of the city, between the slopes of Monte Mario and the Tiber banks.

The Fishing Cycle (Ciclo della Pesca)

7The painter Umberto Coromaldi (Rome, 1870-1948) was entrusted with the external decoration of the pavilion, planned as a frieze for installation under the double loggias along the façades. The high positioning meant that the continuous cycle of paintings would be visible from the street and river through the wide arches of the loggias.

9Coromaldi had long observed the everyday life of seafarers, especially during his sojourns in Romagna, but his recounting offers neither exaltation nor any shadow of social rhetoric: the fishermen are simply engaged in their tasks. In tune with each other and in harmony with their environments, they work with complete inner dignity. From stony shores at first light of dawn, they push their boat with its long oars into the sea, raising a light white froth (Launching for sea). From the beach, between shoreline and the dunes covered in Mediterranean vegetation, they draw in their nets: the intense sun of the summer morning casts blue shadows on the sand from bodies tense with exertion, in acrobatic poses (The dragnet, fig. 4). In spring light contrasting with the brutality of the subject, tuna fishermen engage in an ancient slaughter: tuna lie wounded, expiring as the water stains with their blood (The mattanza, fig. 5). On shore, women scramble to join the fishermen in emptying their nets (Return from fishing) and unload baskets of catch, ready for sale, their ample robes tucked up and heads protected by bright kerchiefs (Landing the catch). Towards day’s end, in a small harbour crowded with moored boats and orange sails, an old man works patiently at net repairs and a child carries a heavy earthenware jar (Mending the nets).

10A frank verism imprints these visually striking scenes, affording recognition of delicate landscape extracts – the promontory of Gabicce with its topography of steep cliffs, the canal port of Cattolica – sometimes even the faces of individual persons.

11The canvases show close-up views of photographic type, balanced in their composition through novel solutions such as cropping. Along with grand mastery of drawing, of academic derivation, Coromaldi combines high modernity in use of colours, dominated by gradations of blues, oranges and earthy browns.

12The ten panels alternating with the marine scenes are instead academic studies, probably from live models: the Fishermen are young nudes of supple body, grouped two or three in sculptural poses (fig. 6). The bright light streaming from above enhances their modelling in dynamic chiaroscuro effects. They stand on a continuous base and hold fishing nets, creels, floats, and neatly coiled ropes; the monochrome gold backgrounds give effects of richness. The nudity of the bodies and absence of settings transport the groups of fishermen to an ideal dimension, in contrast with the vivid naturalism of the fishing scenes.

The painter, Umberto Coromaldi

14An excellent and tireless draughtsman, he sketched from life with quick and sure stroke, documented by the many notebooks and loose sheets still held in the family archives. The subjects are recurring: family affections, household animals and animals of the countryside; the work of fishermen and peasants. In contrast, he was only marginally interested in the popular traditions and social themes that constituted the common denominator of the heterogeneous grouping known as the “XXV della Campagna Romana”, although in fact Coromaldi was a member artist.

15In his last years, aware of his misalignment with the new artistic trends, he continued to paint but led a withdrawn life. Critics prematurely forgot him, partly due to his shy and reserved temperament, which suited him poorly to the smart set and gallery circuits.

16The Fishing cycle is the artist’s only work of monumental scale. In the execution of the cycle, we can identify more or less explicit references to authors and works studied by Coromaldi with particular interest, drawing cues and suggestions for his personal elaboration.

17A first possible reference for the decoration of the Fishing Pavilion can be found in a building that combines art and science: the Stazione Zoologica “Anton Dohrn” of Naples, inaugurated in 1875 in an elegant neo-renaissance building located inside the Villa Reale. Here, on the walls of the large first-floor room, opening onto a loggia that in turn overlooks the sea, Anton von Marées painted marine and rural scenes amidst elements of a light monochrome architecture. The Departure of the fishermen, despite von Marées’ classicist interpretation of the subject as an irretrievably lost myth, can well be compared with Coromaldi’s Launching for sea. The “snapshots” of popular life in Landing the catch, and as far as can be made out in the 1911 photograph of Return from fishing – crowded, colourful, dense with costume notation, rapidly and effectively fixed on the canvas with strokes of light – harks back to Coromaldi’s frequentation of Francesco Paolo Michetti.

Oil painting technique for a monumental cycle

19For these works, the large size of the fishing scenes and the scenographic character of the figurations strongly conditioned the techniques of execution, altogether calling for summation and great rapidity. Coromaldi’s compendiary style – learnt in his youth from Mancini and consisting of loaded and perfunctory brushstrokes – finds full expression, partially in virtue of the overall development of surfaces and the large format, addressed by the artist for the first time. Similar summary modes can be found in the Fishermen, where the basic academic approach is quickly dispensed with in favour of rapid and vivaciously expressive styling.

20All this is fully reflected in Coromaldi’s choices in painting technique, thoroughly homogenous in the works of the cycle and perfectly in tune with his stylistic choices.

24Unfortunately, none of these final drawings have come down to us, but it has been possible to recover a series of sketches and studies belonging to the Coromaldi heirs, some collected in a sketchbook labelled Cattolica by the artist himself, clearly pertinent to the 1911 Cycle, confirming how the artist reflected long on the fishing theme. There are, for example, numerous graphite sketches of figures engaged in pulling a rope in different poses (fig. 8), a motif dealt with in The dragnet, along with other drawings dedicated to the female figure with basket, who appears in Landing the catch, and the group with the old seafarer seated and the boy with amphora in Mending the nets. In general, these are studies from life, made quickly by the artist in sketchbooks during his holidays at Cattolica, where he would visit the Gabicce Pier to observe the fishermen and capture their poses. The cargo and fishing boats depicted, the trabaccoli, with two masts and lug sail in ochre or brick colours, are also typical of Cattolica.

25Also belonging to this preparatory phase are the two oil sketches for The mattanza (fig. 9) and Mending the nets, in a private collection in Rome, and two sketches with Fishermen nudes found on the antiques market during the course of the current study. The small format, the presence of the artist’s signature and completeness of the composition, all lead us to believe that these sketches were executed for approval from the Exhibition commissioners.

26Over the canvas grids, the artist then traced the preparatory drawings with brush, in red, brown or even black oils, clearly visible in places spared from later painting.

27On the bright white background, the artist next painted the scenes with tube oil paints, which by this time had been available on the market for several decades, developing a fabric of fast, summary brushstrokes.

28The backgrounds appear to be constructed by sometimes spreading the colour with a palette knife, but more extensively with flat brushes of different widths, without hiding the brushstrokes but rather playing with overlapping, from widest strokes to quick touches from the brush tip. The overlapping fabric of brushstrokes of different size, tone and direction develops an effect of intense luminous vibration, enhanced by the absence of a final varnish.

29Coromaldi prefers an application in impasto especially in the pale colours, where the blazes of light are often entrusted to full-bodied touches of white, and for certain details intentionally given more material evidence. Within the dark areas, however, he applies the colour more fluidly, often appearing to layer the paint thinly, sometimes rubbing the brush almost dry on the pictorial fabric and sometimes diluting it with turpentine, to the point of producing discolorations and slippage.

30Overall, the artist uses a technique of sparse application (in Italian, a risparmio), that often leaves the preparatory drawing and even base grid exposed, not only to speed up execution but also to exploit the luminosity of the lead-white background, especially in the skies and close-ups.

31In the execution phase, the artist sometimes goes over the straight lines of the construction with the handle of the brush, incising the newly applied colour, for example at the horizon lines or along the fishermen’s spears in The mattanza, to correct or mark the fundamental axes of the scene.

33The palette adopted by the artist appears highly diversified and up-to-date with the latest market trends.

34Among the whites, zinc oxide prevails, used not only as a pigment but also as a lightening agent for other pre-formulated colours. The more expensive lead white, used in the industrial preparation of the canvas, is also adopted as a pigment, in mixture with zinc white, to lend greater luminosity to individual touches of light and for brighter whites, such as the sun-dappled robes of The dragnet fishermen. The most intense blue backgrounds of the sea in The dragnet and The mattanza are based on artificial ultramarine, but at the same time we also find different blues, especially in the skies, based on Prussian blue (ferric ferrocyanide) for the darker grounds and the expensive cobalt blue (cobalt aluminate) for the brighter areas. For the greens, the widespread presence of different elements (including chromium, iron, barium, potassium and sometimes strontium) proves the use of mixtures, including viridian (hydrated chromium oxide), green earth, Prussian blue with added lemon yellow (barium or strontium chromate) or zinc yellow (zinc or potassium chromate). The widespread presence of chromium in the yellow backgrounds confirms the use of zinc or lead chromates (as in the yellow cap in the centre of The dragnet), commercially available under the names Zinc Yellow and Chromium Yellow. Cadmium yellow, on the market since the second half of the 19th century, is also occasionally found, mixed with white in the cloud brushstrokes and with iron-based earths in the orange shirt of Launching for sea. The reds are executed with vermilion, perhaps associated with white lead, in the brighter backgrounds and iron oxide-based earths for the duller reds, browns, orange-browns and complexions, the latter lightened with zinc white. The earths are frequently mixed with zinc, barium, strontium or lead chromates, probably in pre-formulated compositions.

Author contributions

37In this paper, Laura D’Agostino is responsible for the historical and art-historical aspects, Paola Iazurlo for the technical aspects related to the execution technique and the intervention.