This work is essential to illustrate Goliardo Padova's Chiarismo period during his first Milanese years.
He was born in Casalmaggiore in 1909 and studied as a decorator between the Art Institute in Parma and Brera Academy in Milan. Goliardo Padova approached painting by participating in the mutation of taste of that period: 20th century painting was juxtaposed to an impressionism characterized by diffused lights and bright, flat and graphic styles, which were probably inspired by to the exciting discovery of unknown fourteenth-century frescos in a church near Milan in 1931.
Goliardo Padova proved himself clearer than others of this tendency, resulting advanced in production compared the Milanese Chiarismo historical group (Del Bon, De Rocchi, Lilloni, De Amicis and Spilimbergo). Padova distinguished himself also in the technique: he did not paint on fresh white priming, but directly on panels, which were devoid of preparation, with a frugal use of pigment and without covering the support. Padova slowly let the forms emerge as in a photographic emulsion, without ever arriving to monochrome.
La Lanca (1940) also belongs to the period of Chiarismo (the verso has a still-life painted with clear colours): here the theme of the river Po emerges, which will be recurring in the painter’s work during the postwar era.
Loan from private collection
