Casolari in campagna

In this painting, rich vegetation fills the foreground behind which there is a clearing leading to some buildings spread out on two levels. In the background, beneath a lively sky, in which an intense blue forcefully contrasts with a reddish glow, a group of dwellings appears between the hill, which closes them in, and a line of trees on the left-hand side. The painting is rich in matter; the ranges of colour appear in a tense, dynamic and close relationship.
As always in the works of Luigi Bartolini, the landscape does not express peaceful natural harmony, but rather it suggests the theme of tension. Bartolini’s highly original form of expressionism introduces a sense of disquiet into a view of nature, even the most apparently tranquil one, and it is this that makes the artist important in the Italian context of his time.