Veduta di Arosio (Brianza)

This view of Arosio is a painting of the highest quality, produced just before the majestic high-mountain landscapes that characterized Longoni’s last period. The refined chiaroscuro fabric of the work hinges on the tall, dark tree in the foreground, which serves as repoussoir of the eye towards an evanescent horizon. The artist concentrates above all on effects of light, which prevail even over the subject. Form sometimes has unclear outlines, almost dissolving, like the flowering tree next to the cypress, whose white-spattered branches resemble an airy cloud and confer upon the landscape an exquisite touch of springtime grace. The houses, fields, hedges form the warp for the delicate, measured dosage of colour. In the hour before twilight, a soft, golden, horizontal light inundates the countryside like a benediction from on high.
The perspective from foreground to background proceeds through alternating areas of dark (the hedges and haystacks in the foreground) and bright, light-drenched zones (the bordering part of the field). Next comes an array of houses and vegetation, again darker in tone, followed in turn by a large splotch of light, which introduces, with a more subtle darkish variation, the landscape’s last, blurred profile.