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The Emigrants - Raffaello Gambogi (circa 1894)

"The Emigrants" is an oil on canvas, 146 x 196, by Raffaello Gambogi, exhibited at the Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori in Livorno. Emigration to foreign countries, where people hope to find work, becomes an important social issue in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century. Entire families move from the countryside to port cities, from where they embark for distant lands. One of these port cities is Livorno, which Gambogi often visits, coming from Torre del Lago, where he resides. At the port of Livorno, emigrants crowd together, carrying their meager belongings in bags, baskets, and backpacks. They are the new poor, leaving their homeland with the hope of a better tomorrow. Gambogi's realistic painting captures the emergence of a social and human issue but adheres to a tradition of formal schemes: it does not denounce, it does not seek remedies, but simply recounts the story. Raffaello Gambogi barely hints at the faces, focusing instead on the gestures – the father kissing the little girl, the mother wiping her tears with a red handkerchief, the other little girl reaching out her arms. In the background, dark ships are anchored, shrouded in smoke, with masts still devoid of sails. On the sea, glassy and dirty, a cold sky devoid of any temporal reference is reflected. The shadows of the figures are directed toward the viewer because from that sea comes a certain brightness: a sea that lies between the dock, where the emigrants wait, and those dark and distant ships that represent both hope and the unknown, as well as painful separation. In the dark reflections on the water, in the women’s garments, and in the paving of the dock, there is a hint of divisionism: a technique that interrupts the continuity of the brushstrokes. [source Wikipedia]

Associato LP del 1980