Matilde Sartorari Biography
Born in Zevio on 10 June 1902 to Adelina and Agostino Sartorari, a wealthy landowner, little Matilde grew up assimilating stimuli and suggestions from a rural world that would always represent her main source of inspiration. He completed his classical studies at the Royal College of Angels where he stood out for his "brilliant intelligence" and "gentle goodness". After the outbreak of the world war, the worrying political situation became increasingly uncertain when in June 1916 the Austro-Hungarian troops launched the violent offensive against the Italian army, until it came to a head in October of the following year when the enemy at Caporetto penetrates the national front, opening a path towards the country. It was then that the Sartorari family decided to move to Florence where their father Agostino had already been staying for some time. The Tuscan capital, the ancient capital of the Kingdom, always prestigious for its glories and beauties, was decades ago the scene of significant innovations in the artistic field. The revolution of the 'macchia', born from the meetings at the Caffè Michelangelo of personalities including Adriano Cecioni, Telemaco Signorini, Cristiano Banti, Odoardo Borrani, initiated an energetic opposition to the traditional repertoire linked to historical, civil and religious themes to promote a conception of the landscape which is inspired by modern tonal and luministic research derived from impressionism. If the cosmopolitan character of the city, fueled by the continuous passage of visitors and the presence of foreigners, especially Anglo-Saxons, has contributed to stimulating openness towards currents of ideas and tastes coming from abroad, there have been other opportunities for updating on new developments 'ophthalpe. The stays in Paris spent by various exponents of the local school, the theoretical commitment of Diego Martelli and initiatives such as the exhibition held in the winter of 1880 which brought together French masters including Millet, Corot and the barbizonniers Dupré, Rousseau and Daubigny in Florence, they promoted in the Tuscan context the taste for painting rich in light and atmosphere, rendered with an "instantaneous" attitude. Sartorari's training therefore took place in a context still dominated by the heirs of the Macchiaiola season, who through formulas renewed with respect to academic dictates were able to capture the elements for a thematic repertoire rich in ideas in the moments of a life led within the limits of the countryside. Encouraged in her artistic inclinations by her mother, a woman of "rare intelligence and beauty", the young woman enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts, soon abandoning it. It was Galileo Chini, a painting professor at the Florentine university, who suggested that she rely on the teachings of Francesco Gioli, who in turn directed her to Cesare Ciani. The results of the short apprenticeship and the first exercises appear in the personal exhibition inaugurated on 25 June 1919 in a room of the “Lyceum” in Via Ricasoli in Florence, which represents his exhibition debut at the age of just seventeen. “Miss Sartorari is surprising for her precociousness (..). Except for some small figures, he doesn't even resemble the master. It's an instinct that must continue to work as inspiration dictates, without worries. It is precisely this lack of concern which produces, in Sartorari's painting, that sense of free joy which is reflected in the confident brushstrokes, the delicate harmony of the relationships, the correctness of the tones', states Ferdinando Paolieri in the review published in the newspaper “La Nation". Given the failure to find the catalogue, the article is the only document that allows us to identify part of the exhibited works which include, among other things, landscapes and figure studies. Mario Tinti, a leading critic in the Florentine panorama, in his speech published on 6 July in "Il Nuovo della Sera" agrees in addressing the young woman with words of praise for her "gift of spontaneity, of instinctiveness", also noting the expertise with which she knows identify the compositional structure of the subject. If the danger of "exceptional mimetic faculties" can arise in the strong similarities with Gioli's language. in her opinion, Sartorari knows how to treat the material with extreme ease, in layers that are sometimes dense, sometimes transparent, which give depth to the planes and body to the objects. “And I see in the first experiments of this young woman, outside the suggestion of the masters, something fresh, candid, native from which she will later be able to emerge, with discipline and will, a definitive character of an artist”. Even after Gioli's death in 1922, the young woman kept the epistolary relationship with the master's family alive. Like Gioli, Sartorari also depicts work in the fields without tension or resentment, and in the portraits her investigation is aimed at capturing with sensitive discretion the internal movements hidden in a face or a gesture. The painters Llewelyn Lloyd and Gioli himself converged on the inauguration, while others such as Alfonso Hollaender and Vittorio Matteo Corcos declared their admiration for the surprising stylistic qualities. The acclaim that critics give her goes beyond local borders to gain wide resonance even in the Veneto area. At the National Art Exhibition, opened between August and September 1920 in Palazzo del Giardino Salvi in Vicenza, the acceptance jury composed of Alessandro Milesi, Edoardo Rubino and Beppe Ciardi, in contrast with the rule of the regulation which establishes the admission of artists with a maximum of three works, dedicates an entire room to Sartorari where it brings together forty of his works. Hailed as a "hope for the future", the painter arouses interest in "the sense of precise drawing, the color in always excellent relationships and a natural overall frankness" which "would make one believe in a mature, male hand, so frank is the brushstroke, and virile”, as Ugo Zampieri noted on 6 September in “L'Adige”. Among the works on display, mostly small studies, critics highlight S.Vigilo sul Garda, Piazza S. Ambrogio (Florence), “the most joyful in colourism”, Mattino d'October, Lady in the Sun and Una strada. Furthermore, some exercises emerge as an "impression" of balanced compositional vigor such as Tuscan Barroccio, a "bright note of colour", alongside sketches of interiors and still lifes including Sugar Bowl and Fruit.
