The rotunda of the Palmieri baths 1866

Giovanni Fattori painted The Rotunda of the Palmieri Baths in 1866 using oil on panel. The quick, en plein air painting style of the Macchiaioli group to which Fattori belonged is evident in the work's open brushwork. Fattori focuses on the leisure activities of the upper classes, their material culture, and the labor required to produce them. The rotunda's tented structure, for example, must have been fabricated, transported, and erected to create this space of bourgeois leisure. The fashionable clothing of the patrons, painted with gestural brushstrokes, indicate the influence of Parisian styles of fashion and painting. The material qualities of paint on panel create a scene that is more suggestive than descriptive, highlighting the artist's process. Fattori engaged with the skilled traditions of painting and drawing, alongside those of craft and design, and, in doing so, challenged the distinction between fine art and other creative practices.