Il carcere di Viareggio

The prison of Viareggio is essentially a mournful façade against which the sentry-box appears to lean. It is a leaden vision in which the background, obstructed by the prison’s façade and by a towering building behind it, is rent by a small patch of joyless sky.
The painting is dated 1903, before the two stays in Paris that gave Viani new elements of pictorial language. Nomellini’s influence can be seen in the way in which the light determines (or constructs) space. However, the essentials of the doleful gaze that Viani cast on the world are already well defined in this work.