Quiete

In Avondo’s Quiete (“Stillness”), sky and sea dominate, reducing to the minimum the presence of the land, which is practically repulsed to the extreme right of the painting. An immobile sky and an equally still sea, its waters completely without motion, are both equally melancholy in tone.
There is no trace of human presence in this gloomy piece of landscape, providing a helpful perspective on the painting’s title. The “stillness” depicted here verges on a thoughtful meditation on solitude; the theme of extreme silence is imposingly suggestive.
Quiete gives full expression to one of the artist’s essential traits, namely the combination of luminous chromatic intensity with the essential clarity of structure. It is a significant instance of the major contribution to later 19th-century Italian art that came from French landscape painting, via northern Italian artists, with their mix of realism and emotional participation.