Piero Leidi (Brescia, 1892 – Bedizzole, 1976), Mountain view with Ponte di Legno

Piero Leidi (Brescia, 1892 – Bedizzole, 1976)

Mountain view with Ponte di Legno

Tempera on cardboard, 23 x 17 cm

Signed lower right “P.Leidi”; dated 1943 and inscribed on the back

Piero Leidi, an artist originally from Brescia, studied in Lugano with Luigi Rossi (1852-1923), a staunch supporter of en plein air painting until the 1913s; Rossi rekindled Leidi's dedication to mountain views, which he never abandoned even when the artist continued his studies at the Academy of Florence. At the same time as his lessons in Florence, Leidi enrolled in the Moretto painting school in Brescia, receiving the first prizes in XNUMX for his realistic ability to reconstruct landscape details. His exhibition activity was limited to the first decades of the XNUMXth century, particularly to documented participation in exhibitions in Milan, Turin, Cremona, Genoa, Venice and Brescia within the Group of Independent Artists. The growth of his prestige allowed the artist to also participate in foreign exhibitions, such as in Paris, where Leidi stood out for an original vision of the mountain view.

This landscape beautifully combines all the characteristics of Leidi's painting: a crystalline colorism pervades the entire composition, punctuated by liquid brush strokes that define solid volumes, in a silent restitution of a snapshot of life. The evanescent touches with which the artist patiently distinguishes the window frames and woods together with the piles of bricks that build a distant wall match well with the thin shadow cut between the sparse houses and that seems to cool the grass. In the painting, a glimpse of Ponte di Legno can be identified, a town in Brescia that is representative of the artist's production.

The formal lyricism that springs from the particular point of view, conferring a state of grace to the noble poverty of the place, is reminiscent of the socialist realism in which Leidi participated in the adoption of these particular subjects, of silent contemplation. These views can be compared to various charcoal drawings portraying workers and peasants, based on the contemporary experiences of Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo and Francesco Filippini.