Arduino Colato (1880-1954) - The Bath Of The Goddess - Xl

- Oil on canvas.- Arduino Colato, a painter and draftsman born in Verona in 1880 and living in Paris since his youth, places the female nude at the heart of his aesthetic quest. His career, imbued with influences as diverse as Post-Impressionism, the poetic ingenuity of Le Douanier Rousseau and the temptations of Cubism, finds its most intimate expression in the studies of the human body that he creates in pastel, charcoal, oil or graphite. One perceives neither a desire for scandal nor a desire for rupture, but rather a sustained exercise of observation and formal lyricism. The bodies that Colato represents on paper or cardboard are presented with a silent grace, devoid of artifice, as if the artist were seeking a serene and timeless truth in the suppleness of the line and the delicacy of the stroke. His female nude sometimes recalls the graphic subtlety of certain 18th-century masters, but filtered by a modern sensibility, aware of the artistic freedom acquired in avant-garde Paris. Colato does not overload his work with superfluous details or clutter the pictorial space; his gaze seems guided by an ethic of simplicity. The result is a double nudity: that of the body represented and that of the pictorial language itself, reduced to the essentials. This is where the intensity of his work lies: the purity of a line oscillating between vivacity and delicacy, between sensuality and spirituality. If his still lifes or his Italian landscapes testify to rigor and know-how, it is his nudes that reveal his true voice. They concentrate the intimacy of an artist who, amidst the hustle and bustle of Parisian cafés and salons, chose the silence of the studio, direct contact with the model and the assured gesture of his hand on the paper. His women, both anonymous and universal, are not idealized muses, but human presences, captured in the truth of the moment. - Dimensions of the unframed image: 90 x 145 cm / 105 x 160 cm with a magnificent luxury frame. Galerie Montbaron includes a technical sheet prepared by a certified art historian for each lot. This sheet is sent digitally upon request.