Leonardo Roda (Racconigi, 1868 – Turin, 1933), The Day's End

Leonardo Roda (Racconigi, 1868 – Turin, 1933)

At the end of the day

Oil on canvas, 120 x 170 cm

With frame, 151 x 201 cm

Signed lower right: “L.Roda”

The majestic canvas in question should be included in the prolific production of the Piedmontese painter Leonardo Roda (Racconigi, 1868 - Turin, 1933), as attested by the signature on the bottom right, known mainly for his rural and mountain landscapes. Born in Racconigi, in the province of Cuneo, Roda was mostly self-taught, despite a period in Turin at the studio of the artist and writer Marco Calderini (1850 - 1941), where he developed, following the example of the master, a pictorial style aimed at capturing the beauty and serenity of nature. His works, in fact, often depicted large landscapes and scenes of rural life, with farmers at work in the fields or quiet villages nestled among the hills. Roda was able to masterfully render the grandeur of the snow-capped peaks, the lush valleys and the play of light and shadow on the rocky walls. He regularly exhibited his works in important Italian cities such as Milan, Turin, Genoa and Florence, participating in various exhibitions, including the Promotrici di Torino and the annual exhibitions at the Circolo degli Artisti until 1925, thus earning the appreciation of the public and critics. His style, while remaining faithful to the landscape tradition, showed a modern sensitivity in the brush stroke and use of color. A passionate mountaineer and botanist, he often stayed in Valtournanche, in the Aosta Valley, transposing the most characteristic views of the valley onto canvas, in particular painting the Matterhorn in every declination of period and light, executing numerous versions with small variations both in large format and as sketches with fresh, fast and elegant strokes. A great friend of the Ligurian writer and journalist Edmondo De Amicis (1846 – 1908), who commemorated him in the magazine “Aosta” of the provincial administration of the valley, he often traveled along the Ligurian Riviera, which he crossed from east to west, often stopping in his beloved Bordighera, and arriving as far as the French Riviera (Fra Celle e Albisola, 1899, French Riviera, 1907). Today his works are preserved in important Italian collections, such as Preludio d'Inverno, previously owned by the Istituto Bancario Italiano, now preserved in the art collections of the Cariplo Foundation and another painting at the Gaffoglio Museum in Rapallo. He died in Turin in 1933.

The canvas presented here, entitled A giornata finita, which shows a group of peasants on horseback returning home after a hard day's work in the fields while in the background rise the smoking chimneys, symbol of the new industrialized city that is advancing, can be compared iconographically and ideologically with The Fourth Estate by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (1901, Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Milano), thus representing a true social and political manifesto, an icon of the peasant and working-class condition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Italy at the turn of the century was, in fact, a country undergoing profound social and economic transformations. Industrialization, although still limited to some areas, had created an urban proletariat in often miserable conditions, with exhausting working hours and low wages. At the same time, in the countryside, masses of peasants were fighting against poverty and land ownership, while socialist and anarchist ideas were spreading rapidly, fueling strikes and demands for better living conditions and for the recognition of workers' rights. Roda, like Pelizza da Volpedo, deeply sensitive to the social issues of his time and influenced by socialist thought, felt the urgency to represent this nascent political and social force within this canvas, testimony to a new class of aware workers emerging. The composition of the painting is powerful and symbolic: the compact group of men and women advancing determinedly on horseback towards the viewer is flooded by a sunset light that symbolizes the hope for a future of redemption. The faces are serious and determined, but not aggressive; there are no weapons or signs of violence, but only the strength of numbers and the awareness of a newfound unity.

From a formal point of view, his works are part of the veristic movement, demonstrating a great commitment to representing the world in an authentic and non-idealized way through full-bodied and rapid brush strokes: even in his lyrical interpretation of the landscape, Roda strives to render the concreteness of the figures of the proletariat, removed from any rhetoric, the materiality of the earth and the truthfulness of light. Remembered mostly as a landscape painter, this work reveals a deep and rooted bond of the artist with the Italian territory, as well as a sincere observation of the truth and a present social sensitivity that make, in fact, the canvas a rare testimony of the imminent industrialization.