Alberto Sughi - On the road

The work can be defined as a genre scene, that is, the depiction of an episode of everyday life that, apparently, lacks any significant element. These types of domestic subjects were long considered minor and only began to spread in Western art starting in the 17th century. Only with the development of 19th-century realism did everyday subjects become considered equally important as historical or religious ones. The Impressionists, in particular, favored subjects related to modern life in urban, bourgeois settings. More specifically, Alberto Sughi's artistic production is directed at an investigation, conducted along the lines of existentialism and the analysis of human relationships, of a bourgeois world, captured in the daily routine of its gestures and rituals.

Alberto Sughi's artistic poetics recurs in most of his works, both pictorial and sculptural. The scene depicted is realistic, yet lacking in physiognomic details, objective particulars that might identify the situation or even place it within a social context. Sughi's existentialist art is not interested in external social reality, but rather in the inner reality of man, which the artist explores through his expressive means. The pictorial deformations that characterize Sughi's paintings, and which serve as a vehicle for expressing his existentialist anxieties, are also echoed in this bas-relief. As is his wont, Sughi precisely frames the scene, defining an interior, a restricted space in which the subjects are forced to interact with one another. In this space, the artist highlights internal tensions by expressively deforming the subjects. Even in this bas-relief, where the sculptural technique imposes an even more pronounced plasticity than painting, the subjects are imbued with emotional vibrations. These vibrations also reverberate in the physical space of the train compartment, emphasizing the subjects' solitude and difficulty in relating to others.

Alberto Sughi, Cesena 1928 – Bologna 2012, always chose the path of realism throughout his painting career. However, Sughi's realism never had a social orientation; rather, its focus shifted to the human condition, to human solitude: this is why Sughi's painting has been described as "existentialist realism." In the 1960s, Sughi's realism was influenced by Bacon, presenting distortions in his subjects and spatial settings similar to those of the English artist.

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