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SILVER Seller in Venezia, Italy
The painting depicts a middle-aged man shot in a close-up three-quarter format, with his face slightly lowered and his penetrating, meditative gaze turned towards the viewer. The subject wears a wide-brimmed hat with a late nineteenth-century bourgeois style, which casts a soft shadow on his flushed face, framed by a short, bristly beard. The right hand, robust and shaped with confident touches, is brought to the face in an absorbed gesture that suggests reflection or anticipation. The painting is conducted with a rapid and casual approach, typical of Selvatico's life studies: the brushstrokes are energetic, charged with matter, constructed by superimposing chromatic touches that recall the lessons of Venetian Impressionist painting and the teaching of Ettore Tito. The background is animated by a range of greys and greens, with cold flashes that enhance the subject's warm complexion by contrast. The composition is essential and powerful: the bulk of the hat occupies almost a third of the pictorial surface, giving the figure a silent and almost sculptural authority. The work is part of Selvatico's lesser-known but stylistically freer production: that of virile studies, carried out as preparatory exercises or as autonomous psychological investigations, far from the worldliness of the famous female portraits. Here the painter shows himself capable of an expressive virility that recalls the character heads of the great Venetian tradition, from Tintoretto to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, filtered through post-Macchiaiola modernity. The small-format tablet reveals the hand of a fully formed artist, confident in drawing and an absolute master of color.
ID: 73557-1775126567-147677
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