The Spring Allegory represents a unicum in the artist's production, both for the subject and for the size of the support. the large size, signing the View of Rome, painted for the International Exhibition, 450 x 310 cm, patrimony of the National Gallery of Modern Art, and the sketch with which he participated in the Contest for the poster Rome 1911- Commemorative Feasts of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (won by Duilio Cambellotti with Le Aquile e L'antica via Appia), 200 x 96 cm, in private collection, formerly the Alessio Ponti Art Gallery. Both works have in common with the Spring allegory the emphasis of the natural light effects that Grassi loved to capture in different moments of the day. If in the View of Rome it is the golden-orange light of the sunset that defines the volumes and the aura of the city, faithfully reconstructed by a Code Escurialense drawing by the Ghirlandaio school (1490 c.), in the sketch of the poster it is instead the lunar reverberation that illuminates the bluish green of the Dioscuri with their white horses, rendered as a fascinating apparition of an 'ancient' that is imagined to be still present. In the Spring Allegory it is instead the full light of day that allows each chosen element to obtain a sort of autonomy, technically rendered thanks to a free divisionism inspired by that of Giacomo Balla of which Grassi was a friend. Around the female figure there is a flood of flowers and in the background, as if to evoke the limits of a scene which, however, has no distance, a flowering of oleanders, while on the ground a multitude of small white flowers, a sort of homogeneous pattern, welcomes the female figure. Here is the chromatic drafting of the subjects, rendered by 'divided' filaments, obeys an enveloping rhythm that radiates from the center where the pearly female figure is placed in the background with the green of the oleanders, to the lawn below, mindful of that observation minute and experimental that characterized the artist's studies on light. Vittorio Grassi was very interested in studying visual phenomena to reduce and synthesize color in relationships and volumes, sensitive to a coloring based on the calculation of pictorial values to gradually achieve, effects of full sun, the transparency of the shadows, the breath of the atmosphere, as Piero Scarpa underlined in "Il Messaggero dell'arte" (24.3.1924). Vittorio Grassi's interest in flowers, natural elements , derives from an intense activity en plein air, and not only with the XXV of the Roman Campagna, but also from a personal adherence to Pre-Raphaelism, whose climax is represented by his forty illustrations for the code of the Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri, on which he worked from 1917 to 1921, the year of publication that celebrated the sixth centenary of Dante Alighieri's death, and printed in 1321 copies to confirm the commemoration. Spring Allegory, datable to the early 1920s, considering the theme and size, would suggest a specific client and location (hotel room?) and perhaps even belonging to a series more complex (the seasons?). The work, since it was painted, was never displayed unless in the studio of the sculptor and medalist Torquato Tamagnini (Perugia, 1886-Rome, 1965) who bought it as evidenced by the memory of his relatives. That Tamagnini was born in Perugia it may mean that he got to know Grassi's works when the artist, employed at the Umbrian branch of the Bank of Italy, took part in various city collectives.

Francesco Tetro (May 2021)