It is to this period of interest in curved shapes and wavy lines alongside straight and jagged ones that we can attribute the Cerruti drawing, which shows a slender dancer in a short, pleated dress, stockings and heeled shoes beside a juggler with beard and moustache holding a sort of sunburst parasol and leaning towards her. 

The drawing is executed in charcoal on card of good grammage and fairly good quality, now with yellowing on both sides and signs of prior attachment to another support. There is a small tear at the top in the middle and a light diagonal mark can be discerned in UV fluorescence in the upper right section. Microscopic inspection reveals some white patina (mould or residues of fixative to prevent loss of charcoal particles?) and a few signs of rust subsequent to the chiaroscuro drawing. The cursive signature, which presents irregular shading of the ground and a faint “halo” in UV fluorescence, does not appear wholly in line with Fortunato Depero’s style, especially as regards the initial letter and lack of fluidity but also the date, which the artist usually wrote in full. It is unlikely to be a later signature written by the painter himself on an originally unsigned drawing because his signature as from around 1927 (with few exceptions) presents a characteristic “p” cut in the lower part of the stroke. This can also be found in a number of authentic works prior to that date but signed later by the artist.¹ 

The subject is related to Depero’s iconography for the Balli plastici or Plastic Dances, created with the Swiss poet and writer Gilbert Clavel and staged on 14 April 1918 at the Teatro dei piccoli (Palazzo Odescalchi, Rome) to music by Malipiero, Bartok (under the pseudonym Chemenow), Gerald Tyrwhitt (Lord Berners) and Casella, who also conducted. Most of the work was done by Depero, who produced the scenery and costumes and was also involved in the choreography, developing a style that was original also within the sphere of Futurism and giving birth to a vividly coloured, fairy-tale world of great scenic impact.² His “highly synthetic pictorial constructions of dynamically-shaped plastic structures in solid colours” developed in mechanical analogies³ marking an evolution of the mechanical orientation already noted by Boccioni during a visit to his studio in Rome in 1915: “impertinent nonchalance in addressing art with a brutal mechanistic approach”.⁴ 

Depero had produced illustrations for Clavel’s book Un istituto per suicidi (Rome, 1917) the previous year, alternating India ink with charcoal chiaroscuro drawings in a highly geometric style (Rovereto, Mart, Fondo Depero), generating volume through the range of half-tones and the depth of the black in the darkest shadows. 

Echoes of the experience of the Balli plastici were to linger on during a stay in Viareggio, when he painted Diavoli di caucciù a scatto (Little Rubber Devils, 1919, Switzerland, private collection), whose soft, curving shapes momentarily replaced the angularity of I miei balli plastici (My Plastic Dances, 1918, Switzerland, private collection). From 1919 on, with the opening in Rovereto of the Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero, the artist and his wife Rosetta created a long series of tapestries, mosaics of pieces of cloth in solid colours, into which many of the themes of his playful inspiration were channelled. 

It is to this period of interest in curved shapes and wavy lines alongside straight and jagged ones that we can attribute the Cerruti drawing, which shows a slender dancer in a short, pleated dress, stockings and heeled shoes beside a juggler with beard and moustache holding a sort of sunburst parasol and leaning towards her. Knock-kneed, perhaps intimidated or flattered, possibly captured in the middle of her dance, she smiles with her left arm behind her back, her stylised right arm by her side and her head slightly tilted while her neck is oddly off-centre with respect to her torso. 

They are not on the ground but in mid-air, like the Giocolieri (Jugglers, 1919, 38.5 x 31.9 cm, charcoal on paper, Rovereto, Mart) and one of the figures in Il circo (The Circus, 1919, 33 x 54.4 cm, charcoal on paper, private collection),⁵ where the dark areas are, however, much bolder than in the Cerruti drawing. This also holds for other drawings of the period, like the large Viareggio. Il carnevale (Viareggio. Carnival, dated “Viareggio - 1918”, charcoal on paper, 61 x 122 cm, Rovereto, Mart) and others in the Mart. 

Apart from a few simplifications due to the difference in the graphic technique employed, strong similarities can be detected with two figures in the bottom left section of a drawing in India ink on paper (32 x 50 cm), signed probably later and dated “1918 - Roma”, published by Passamani (Rovereto, private collection) with the title Scena fantastica (Fantastic Scene)⁶ and previously in the catalogue of the solo show of 1969 at the Galleria Martano in Turin.⁷ The Cerruti drawing presents the addition to the male figure of the parasol or windmill, a sort of sceptre of tribal rites, a possibly shamanic object held in the Scena fantastica by two masked, wizard-like male figures akin to the savages and devils of coeval works by Depero. The block on which they rest in the ink drawing, where it touches a closely undulating base with an arched colonnade in the background, reappears in the Cerruti work beneath the juggler. The figure of the dancer alone appears in a large drawing again used as an illustration in the catalogue of the major show in Bassano⁸ (charcoal on paper, 70 x 130 cm, Trento, private collection), where Passamani states that it “is probably to be identified” as the one shown in the Grande esposizione nazionale futurista (Milan, Palazzo Cova, Via Manzoni 1) organised by Marinetti in 1919⁹ and entitled Ballo (Diavoli d’acciaio equilibristi e ballerine di gomma) (Dance [Steel Devils, Tightrope Walkers and Rubber Dancers]) together with no fewer than forty-seven other drawings in charcoal.¹⁰ The black here is very bold with a plasticity evident in the bodies and a sober background whose planes acquire a meaning absent in the Cerruti drawing, which includes only the block in the foreground and a darker line, possibly a step, at the side. 

The charcoal drawings of this period contrast with the greater flatness of the oil paintings, where volume is developed in the architectural elements through full colours and in the figures through the tonal modulation of nuances following the curvature of the bodies. And they differ still more from the tapestries, where planes are developed purely through the rhythm of colour. 

The Cerruti drawing does not present the blacks and the contrasts of other coeval works produced with the same technique but rather shading with little contrast and on a larger scale - extending to the background as a whole - that becomes darker around the light circle of the parasol and near the legs, from which it is partially separated by a lighter outline. Microscopic examination suggests that the artist did not use an eraser except perhaps along some curves of the male figure’s legs. There is something curious about the rendering of the dancer’s eyes, which are not delimited by Depero’s customary bold strokes but barely suggested by areas of darker shading. No variants or outlines are revealed, however, even in transmitted light. Another peculiar aspect of the Cerruti drawing is the absence of any trace of hatching, which generally appears in chiaroscuro drawings of the period, in those for Clavel and in the later works, including those on the circus. In another sketch entitled Il circo (The Circus, 1919, 47 x 45 cm, Switzerland, private collection),¹¹ apparently drawn in pencil rather than charcoal and hence with less contrast, the figures present less regular outlines and a highly structured, rhythmic background with various elements interacting with the figures, as is typical of Depero, rather than the completely bare ground of the Cerruti drawing. 

The Cerruti drawing is published - with different titles and without its authenticity being questioned - in Maurizio Scudiero’s monographic study of 2009 and in the catalogue of the show of 2004 at Palazzo Bricherasio in Turin, curated by Scudiero and Daniela Magnetti, where it was shown. The ultimate impression is of a work so weak by comparison with Depero’s known drawings and so devoid of character in the use of chiaroscuro, which was one of his specific trademarks, as to call its attribution into question. At the same time, however, examination and comparison has revealed nothing making it possible to rule out authenticity. If it is in fact Depero’s work, a dating of 1919 appears appropriate. 

Gianluca Poldi 

* The author wishes to thank Valeria D’Urso for a discussion of the work.

¹ Poldi 2019.

² Nigro 2013, pp. 43-53.

³ E. Crispolti, “Appunti su Depero ‘astrattista futurista’ romano”, in Milan 1989a, p. 188.

⁴ Depero 1940, p. 234.

⁵ Scudiero 2009, p. 186.

⁶ Bassano 1970, cat. 164.

⁷ Turin 1970, cat. 65.

⁸ Bassano 1970, cat. 186.

⁹ Grande esposizione nazionale futurista 1919, cat. 85.

¹⁰ Ibid. 1919, pp. 12-13.

¹¹ Madrid 2014-15, cat. 91.