“where colour becomes matter vibrating with glowing luminosity”.

This seascape, similar in its measurements to many other small panels painted by Enrico Reycend en plein air, stands out for its glowing freshness of vision and brushwork, the “germinating material luminosity” typical of his finest works, which has often prompted critics to draw parallels with the Impressionists. The artist in any case occupied an innovative and wholly original position on the scene of Piedmontese painting in the 1880s and 1890s. Though certainly possible in view of Reycend’s three stays in Paris of 1878, 1888 and 1900, there is as yet no evidence of direct contact with the French Impressionists, the most persuasive parallels drawn by critics being with Sisley. There are, however, evident affinities in their way of interpreting and representing the landscape in terms of light, constructing forms through combinations of pure, rich colour with rapid brushstrokes and lack of descriptive intent. Like the Impressionists, Reycend was particularly sensitive to change in the conditions of perception and delighted in depicting the same place repeatedly at different hours of the day. This focus on the effects of light in the landscape is particularly evident in the numerous seascapes painted as from the 1880s, when frequent and prolonged stays in Genoa and western Liguria provided Reycend with new subjects to be painted from life in the open: harbour scenes like the fascinating Porto di Genova (Port of Genoa) (1886), which is also in the Cerruti Collection (cat. p. 618), and beaches with boats and figures, or just the sky and the expanse of water shimmering with the coloured reflections of sunlight or moonlight, sometimes animated by a sail or a puff of smoke in the distance, “introduced so as to make the vastness of the space evident through the proportional relations”.¹ 

This theme became increasingly frequent in the artist’s work after the turn of the century, when his painting began, however, to lose the freshness of previous years and become repetitive. This is certainly not true of Riflessi di sole (Reflections of Sunlight), which the art critic Angelo Dragone dates to around 1887 and commends for the sophistication of its pictorial development, “where colour becomes matter vibrating with glowing luminosity”.² He thus chose to include it in the two exhibitions Da Bagetti a Reycend (Turin, 1986) and Paesisti Piemontesi dell’800 (Acqui Terme, 1995). The work is particularly striking in virtue of the artist’s ability to convey through colour alone the emotion aroused by the effect of sunset over the sea. This is a vital and poetic image of vast extent despite the small size of the panel. There are no scenic backdrops to limit the breadth of a vision that extends to the line of the horizon, broken by the dark shapes of a steamship emitting smoke and another smaller vessel. The same very simple but effective view with the same ships and layers of low cloud appears in the panel Alta marea (c. 1887), formerly part of the Arturo Tabusso Collection in Turin, a photograph of which can be seen in the catalogue of the retrospective held in Turin at the Galleria Fogliato in 1955.³ 

In 1979, in addition to their annual exhibition of 19th-century painters (Pittori dell’800), the Fogliato brothers organised a show entitled Omaggio al mondo di Enrico Reycend curated by the art critic Luigi Carluccio. It appears probable that Cerruti purchased Riflessi on that occasion together with another small panel by Reycend, Il Monviso da Saluzzo (View of Monviso from Saluzzo), which has an identical frame (cat. p. 622). While the paintings bear labels on the back attesting to their appearance in both events, the owner’s name “Rag. Cerruti” is found only on the label of the 35th edition of Pittori dell’800. 

Monica Tomiato 

¹ G. L. Marini, in Cuneo 1995; Brescia 1999, p. 335. 

² A. Dragone, in Turin 1986b, p. 21. 

³ M. Biancale, “Enrico Reycend”, in Turin 1955, p. 48, pl. 27.