Fiori Di Campo 1953

Filippo De Pisis made this painting of wildflowers, or Fiori Di Campo, with oil on canvas. The way De Pisis attacks the canvas with such rapid, gestural marks, gives the sense that he made this ‘alla prima,’ wet-on-wet, allowing the colours to mix organically on the surface. Up close, you can really get a sense of the physicality of the paint, especially in the blooms which are thick and opaque, sitting on top of more transparent underlayers. Zooming in on the stems, you can see that De Pisis drags the brush lightly across the canvas, creating a kind of feathery texture, which gives the impression of lightness and movement. Even the butterfly floating in the upper right seems to quiver! The way that De Pisis treats the materiality of paint reminds me of Manet, although his subject matter connects him to a longer history of still life painting, going all the way back to the Dutch masters of the 17th century.