Finestra sul verde

One half of the window is partly open emphasizing, with its summarily outlined embrasure, its essentially prospective function: further beyond opens a frame of disorderly undergrowth, full of light, dominated by yellows and greens which are here and there added to by touches of pink or blue, enclosed by the dark frame of the window and seems to be projected onto a cinema screen.
The painting carries the date of 1946, and was probably finished in the final months of that year. This is one of the most formalist works that Guttuso ever attempted. The window motif – by itself alienating with respect to reality, with its play on transparency and reflection – returned in the following year, in numerous paintings produced in the gardens of Villa Massimo in Rome. Together with some still lifes (presented also at the Venice Biennale in 1948, where he was exhibiting together with his fellow artists of the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti: see in particular Il merlo, 1947), these paintings constitute Guttuso’s highest achievement in understanding the quest of Matisse and Picasso and the Jeunes peintres de tradition française, and therefore of the neo-cubist vogue which, at that time, was tempting most of the Italian artistic sphere.