Walking Woman Luigi Nono

Luigi Nono, born in Fusina, studied art at the Academy of Venice between 1865 and 1871, and at the age of twenty he moved to Polcenigo, where he found his own style through painting landscapes. In 1876 he went on trips to Florence, Rome and Naples, which he recorded in numerous drawings. His contemporaries regarded him as a worthy successor of Giacomo Favretto, even though Favretto depicted the cheerful and humorous side of life in Venice, while Nono primarily made his name with his paintings capturing the lives of the poor and the needy. It was his work Refugium peccatorum that brought him success and popularity. After its
debut in Rome in 1883, the picture was purchased by King Umberto I, and in the next year it won the gold medal in Munich and was also on show in the London exhibition of Italian artists in 1888.
Walking Woman is one of Nono’s paintings exuding gaiety and ease. It shows the painter’s wife, Rina Priuli Bon, and his daughter, Maria, born in 1889. The woman dressed in a soft, pink dress and holding a red-gold parasol looks at her child lovingly and caringly. The figure of another woman, wearing a white dress and also holding a parasol, appears behind the two main characters. The viewer’s gaze
is guided along a white stone wall to a church tower, some details of houses, a sun-lit landscape and a nice blue sky. The scene is set in the small town of
Pedavena, in the Veneto region of Italy. The artist took numerous photos of the scene as well as of each character before painting this sentimental, idyllic picture, and three sketches of the theme, of which two are painted onto photographs, are also known.
This composition was realised in other versions too (made in 1891, 1892 and 1910), currently known by the titles La passeggiata and Il Mattino. One of these can be found in a public collection in Milan (Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Technologia Leonardo da Vinci), while most of them are in private collections.

Anett Somodi