Rosanna Nobilitato
The light in the snowy landscape is bright and crystal clear. The candour of the snow envelops everything while the figures on horseback, the protagonists of the scene, take on sharp, incisive tones, projecting themselves against the clear sky where the light reverberates. The snowy mantle lights up with delicate tones where pink and blue colours blend as if by magic, creating a magical and very suggestive atmosphere.
Nature is majestic and monumental in Stefano Bruzzi’s painting, undoubtedly one of the most sensitive interpreters of 19th-century Italian figurative landscape art. Its reputation crossed the Alps thanks to his friendship with the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. There is a strong bond between Bruzzi and the mountain landscape, which he feels is close to his solitary nature, and which is embodied in a constant study from life that makes his art as romantic and passionate in spirit as it is transparent and straightforward in its pictorial rendering.
His works often depict flocks of sheep or herds of cattle with the shepherds, grazing on the green slopes or the snow-covered plateaus of the Apennines in Piacenza, passing by in blissful and silent solitude. But it is in the whitewashed landscapes, made vibrant by a crystal-clear light, that the profound feeling of sharing with a nature, which is both friend and muse, is infinitely amplified.