Winter 2023

Left: Felice Casorati’s Clelia (1937) and Marisa
Mori’s Study of a Nude (1928).
Below: Nella Marchesini’s Sleeping Woman
(c. 1920)
The nudes in the room
It is impossible to explore art by women in
twentieth-century Italy without wandering
through Felice Casorati’s somewhat eerie
moonscape. His desexualised, almost robotic
nude on show evidences a huge change from
more traditional portrayals of female nudes in
Italy. This 1937 canvas is displayed in comparison
with a softer but still modern nude, created in 1928,
by his former student Marisa Mori, a Florentine
painter best known for her ‘art affairs’ with shortlived
Futurism and its second iteration Areal
Painting – in a world where flight was new and
speed a path to follow. Casorati’s Scuola Libera
di Pittura in Turin – set up in 1927, largely thanks
to Gualino’s funding – was quite the opposite
of speed, however. In the exhibition catalogue,
Sgarbozza describes Casorati’s work, “His cold,
suspended atmospheres in elementary and
geometrical settings, along with his intellectual
rigour, present a modernity that is a far cry from
the changeability of the Impressionists and the
dynamism of the Futurists.” In person,
Anna points to what is arguably the most
exciting nude in the room. It is by Nella
Marchesini – Casorati’s first pupil, who was
eventually asked to manage the school for a
period, along with fellow-artist Lalla Romano.
Displayed on a table at eye-level, Marchesini’s
bold nude, from 1928, was a practice piece. “She
was exercising her hand,” Villari explains,
“She painted on both sides, because she was
saving on materials. The nude on the front recalls
Mantegna’s Dead Christ [in Milan’s Pinacoteca
di Brera] and the woman on the verso is a nod
30 Restoration Conversations • Winter 2023