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Lot Essay
'I believed I had found the incantations and magic of a landscape that suited my most intimate sentiments... In this way, proud intelligence was in harmony with the living landscape. Also, the execution occurred in this spontaneous manner through constructive reason, which was in harmony with the sensations invoked by light and the plastic order which I define as the supreme aim of my work' (Carrà, quoted in Carlo Carrà 1881-1966, Milan, 1994, p.272).
From the late 1920s, Carrà spent his summers painting seascapes at Forte dei Marmi on the Tuscan coastline. Marina, painted in 1936 and 1940, was almost certainly painted during one of his stays there. Carrà often began his paintings during his extended visits and then took them to Milan for completion during the winter. Carrà's intention in his works from this period was to seek a type of almost geometrical order in the subjects he depicted. This was inspired by his interest in the sense of physicality and presence in Giotto's wall-paintings, which he sought to attain in his own art, but in a more modern form. In Marina, Carrà has divided the rectangular field of the foreground with the bottom of the picture and the parallel horizon that he has divided, with the angle of the grass shore, divided it into two rough triangles. Similarly, the quay adheres to this geometrical formation of the scene by following the line of the horizon and appearing in the form of another, more narrow, rectangle. The sails of the two boats, despite one being cut short by the left-hand edge of the painting in a manner that recurs throughout many of his seascapes, conform to this sense of order, the triangular silhouettes echoing each other despite the different form of sail and boat. In this way Carrà invokes a natural harmony by perceiving and representing the world through these discreet mathematical shapes. This is reinforced by Carrà's masterful use of chiaroscuro: the dark shore and sea contrast with the gentle evening reds and yellows in the sky above the horizon, highlighting the irregular crest of a wave near the centre and the jutting tufts of grass on the shore. These are the only elements that escape his ordered visual technique. Thus, a seemingly simple view of a small harbour can be seen to perfectly conform to Carrà's idea that, 'I considered Nature as a provoker of pictorial relationships that for their currency could be determined through rhythm of form, colour and light in a harmonious construction' (Carrà, quoted in ibid., p.360).
From the late 1920s, Carrà spent his summers painting seascapes at Forte dei Marmi on the Tuscan coastline. Marina, painted in 1936 and 1940, was almost certainly painted during one of his stays there. Carrà often began his paintings during his extended visits and then took them to Milan for completion during the winter. Carrà's intention in his works from this period was to seek a type of almost geometrical order in the subjects he depicted. This was inspired by his interest in the sense of physicality and presence in Giotto's wall-paintings, which he sought to attain in his own art, but in a more modern form. In Marina, Carrà has divided the rectangular field of the foreground with the bottom of the picture and the parallel horizon that he has divided, with the angle of the grass shore, divided it into two rough triangles. Similarly, the quay adheres to this geometrical formation of the scene by following the line of the horizon and appearing in the form of another, more narrow, rectangle. The sails of the two boats, despite one being cut short by the left-hand edge of the painting in a manner that recurs throughout many of his seascapes, conform to this sense of order, the triangular silhouettes echoing each other despite the different form of sail and boat. In this way Carrà invokes a natural harmony by perceiving and representing the world through these discreet mathematical shapes. This is reinforced by Carrà's masterful use of chiaroscuro: the dark shore and sea contrast with the gentle evening reds and yellows in the sky above the horizon, highlighting the irregular crest of a wave near the centre and the jutting tufts of grass on the shore. These are the only elements that escape his ordered visual technique. Thus, a seemingly simple view of a small harbour can be seen to perfectly conform to Carrà's idea that, 'I considered Nature as a provoker of pictorial relationships that for their currency could be determined through rhythm of form, colour and light in a harmonious construction' (Carrà, quoted in ibid., p.360).