The Garden

Massimo Campigli (Max Ihlenfeldt)

Download hi-res image TITLE The Garden
AUTHOR Massimo Campigli (Max Ihlenfeldt)
DATE 1936
OBJECT TYPE AND MATERIAL Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS cm 73 × 92
INVENTORY 5058
ROOM IX
FIRMA M. CAMPIGLI 1936
Work on display
Donation

Returning from Paris, where he had been a correspondent for “Il Corriere della Sera” and frequented the group of so-called “Italiens de Paris” (Savinio, Gino Severini, Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo De Pisis), in 1931, Campigli settled in Milan, where he continued the process of formal stylization begun over the course of the previous decade.

Exemplary of the Milanese period, The Garden is one of the artist’s most famous works, permeated by an atmosphere of suspense and magical enchantment and peopled by figures transformed into pure geometrical shapes. In this painting Campigli depicted the result of his research on Picasso and the Cubists, who worked with elements of primitive and Etruscan art.