Paesaggio toscano

The long, narrow rectangle of Cristiano Banti’s Paesaggio toscano depicts a strip of land that starts on the left-hand side of the painting and stretches towards the right. The land slowly fades as if swallowed by the landscape. Two hills form the skyline, filling the background, animated by undulating lines and joined in apparent embrace. The composition is designed to avoid facile effects, seeking instead to imbue its simple lines with intense emotions.
Here, Banti shows the whole range of his original contribution to the Macchiaioli movement. His allegiance to truth and his loving attention to the natural simplicity of place, which bring him closer to the other members of the movement, nonetheless give rise to expressive solutions that differ from the contrasting macchie, or patches, of dense masses. The forms evolve without clashing, virtually unrolling from one another in a delicately modulated continuum.
Formal purity informs the gentle gaze that Banti bestows on simple and concrete reality immersed in profound silence.