(Palmanova 1762–1844 Milan)
The flooding of the Tagliamento river,
oil on panel, 57.5 x 90.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Italy

Exhibited:
Gorizia, Palazzo Attems, Biennali udinesi d’arte antica. I maestri della Pittura Veneta del ‘700, 27 October 1973 – 6 January 1974, no.11;
Ljubljana, Narodna galerija Slovenije, Mojstri beneskega slikarstva 18. stoletja, 25 January – 3 March 1974, no. 11

Literature:
Biennali udinesi d’arte antica. I maestri della Pittura Veneta del ‘700, ed. by A. Rizzi, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1973, pp. 56-57;
Mojstri beneskega slikarstva 18. stoletja, ed. by A. Rizzi, exhibition catalogue, Ljubljana 1974, no. 11

The present painting on panel reveals Bison’s great compositional abilities and his creative flair, as well as recalling his experience as a stage set designer: it is a work of great vitality and communicative effect. The subject is a flood which has hit a mountainous region, possibly reproducing the artist’s own area of origin. The trees on the right, the planes receding into the distance and the perspectival recession of the mountains, are all subject to Bison’s commanding pictorial management. He successfully accentuates the dynamism of his composition with a vibrant freedom of brush strokes. In the foreground group, among the wreckage and the many figures that crowd the scene, a red and black carriage stands out from the largely cool tones employed in the rest of the painting.

Giuseppe Bernardino Bison was a native of Palmanova in Friuli, he trained at the Accademia di Venezia during the 1780s, where he studied perspective with the stage set designer Antonio Mauro. The latter’s teachings were of crucial importance not only to Bison’s easel paintings, such as the present work, but also to his prolific activity as a fresco painter in numerous private palaces in North Eastern Italy. In Venice Bison came into contact with the greatest living exponents of the Venetian tradition such as Francesco Guardi, Giandomenico Tiepolo and Pietro Longhi, whilst encountering the works of masters from the recent past such as Giambattista Tiepolo, Michele Marieschi, the Ricci and Canaletto. During an age that increasingly asserted the elegant, composed formal values of Neoclassical culture, Bison was faithful to those earlier cultural sub-currents, whilst also developing a personal style. In his easel paintings, he adopted numerous genres, each exemplifying the best of the 18th century tradition: landscapes, capricci, mythological scenes, and views of Venice.