Carlo Bonomi (Turbigo, 1880 - 1961)

Carlo Bonomi (Turbigo, 1880-1961)

Herd of sheep

Oil on canvas, 32 x 63

With frame, cm 51 x 82

Born in Turbigo, in the Valle del Ticino, Carlo Bonomi attended the Brera Academy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and subsequently took various courses at the Academy of Fine Arts of Monaco between 1905 and 1907, In the German context, the young artist from the province of Milan came into contact with the works of the masters Von Stuck, Lembach and Kollwitz. At the beginning of the twentieth century is also dated the artist’s stay in Rome. Returning to Milan after the Roman trip, Bonomi opened a studio in the Lombard capital together with Carrà, Castiglioni and Barilli that soon became an important cultural reference point. He volunteered for the First World War, served in the front lines at Cadore and on Monte Grappa; the war experience strongly marked the artist’s imagination, which, between the 10’s and the 30’s, portrays the tragedies and sufferings of soldiers and civilians in war: an example of this trend coincides with The Prisoners of Mauthausen, a painting executed between 1922 and 1923 and presented for the first time at the Exhibition ofMonza fighters of 1924 in which the artist perfectly expresses his rebellion and his total distancing from the brutality of the conflict. Bonomi was inspired, especially in the early years of his long career, by late nineteenth century models of the most famous members of the Lombard divisionist circle, first among all Gaetano Previati, Giovanni Segantini and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Reinterpreted in a sober and plastic way. An example of this trend is a painting like Sinfonia pastorale: the opera, which takes its inspiration from Le due madri di Segantini by GAM di Milano, retakes the theme of the mother nursing her baby in the heat of the sheep at dawn.Starting from the second half of the '10s of the twentieth century, Bonomi is mainly dedicated to sculpture, which becomes, from this moment on, the most continuous form of his artistic expression. His sculptural works are present in different public places and cemeteries or in private collections, among which we remember: the Monumental Cemetery of Milan or those of Busto Arsizio, Gallarate and Turbigo, as well as the public gardens of Novara. His most famous plasticated work is certainly The Mater: this bronze, made in 1915 and perfected later between 1923 and 1948, represents a woman in the act of in an intense emotional exchange. The work is presented for the first time on the occasion of the First Exhibition of "Novecento Italiano", held at the Permanent Fair of Milan in 1926 and supported and animated by Margherita Sarfatti: in the same year, the sculpture is exhibited at the Dresden exhibition and is purchased by the German government to be placed in the Palace of Ministries in Berlin. This work is made by Bonomi "an absolute sculptor, in which essence and existence coincide, thus framing him among the great sculptors of the twentieth century whose formal integrity is almost unique and finds the perfect balance between painting and sculpture, with the same ideal continuity affirmed by Michelangelo"  (V. Sgarbi, Il Novecento, vol. 1, 2018, pp. 158-165). Bonomi is also known for his work as an architect: the restoration operations carried out on his project at the Castle of Turbigo and the Broletto di Novara are well known. In the 1920s, Bonomi builds in his image and likeness, in his native country, his hermitage, La Selvaggia, whose name is inspired by "Wild is who saves himself" - famous saying of Leonardo Da Vinci - in which he realizes his own studies of painting and sculpture. The structure is shaped like a real stone citadel, where his works are still collected and where, in the Gipsoteca, centered on that at Possagno del Canova, you can admire the plasterwork of his sculptures. An artistic heritage recognised at Italian and international level, the residence, preserved and inhabited by Bonomi’s successors, still conveys today the message of an artist who never cared for fashion, of the currents, but whose inspiration has always been the humanity of the people, the strength of work, the freedom of one’s own expression.This painting, with its gloomy tones and fragmentary brush, of divisionist inspiration, shows an old woman leading a flock of sheep to the pasture in a cold and foggy dawn. The harsh atmospheres refer to the pictorial passages of Giovanni Segantini, with particular reference to the Flock on the Way in 1887. The female figure is reminiscent of that of the peasant women of the first post-war period by the German Käthe Kollwitz. 

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