Divisionism marks a departure from the Scapigliati culture, a breaking away from its influence, a far reaching choice to leave behind what would have been a more conservative path, for an avanguard, uncharted one.
While Ranzoni painting, in its estrangement, goes beyond the Scapigliati aesthetics pushing the limits to the point of rejecting the movement premises, as Cremona had done in a minor way, and as Medardo Rosso was to do, the Divisionists based their innovations on the Scapigliati‘s technique but in their attempt to rationalize its unblended brushwork in order to express light through color, they abandoned the manner of their beginnings, and turned their back to a culture which, nevertheless, was to leave a lasting trace on their future research.
Vittore Grubicy, art dealer of great foresight and international vocation, was determinant in creating a framework of study for the future scholars of Cremona and Scapigliatura but he was also an influential figure in the diffusion of the Divisionist technique.
His own career as a painter started late, after 1889 and Woman at the Window is the only one of his paintings that can be considered Scapigliato.
Strongly influenced by the literary movement called “democratic Scapigliatura", Morbelli’s subject matters are inspired by metropolitan social plagues: prostitution, alcohol abuses, suicide, neglect of the elderly.
Dereliction presented as a human tragedy rather than a political problem is an important source of romantic pathos in the positivist literature which was to have a lasting impact on Morbelli.
On the contrary Previati, who remained immune to the positivist bent of Scapigliatura, derived his visionary imageries from its late romanticism aspect and that influence remained the backbone of his symbolism until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Close