Amalfi. Impression
Raffaele Tafuri, oil on canvas, cm 38x53
A pre-eminent figure within the landscape of Italian art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Salerno-born artist Raffaele Tafuri received his formal training at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Naples under the tutelage of Stanislao Lista, deeply absorbing the great tradition of Neapolitan Realism. His relocation to Venice in 1886 marked a pivotal turning point; here, his encounters with the art of Giacomo Favretto and the verismo of Spanish masters, most notably Martín Rico, significantly enriched his expressive vocabulary. The work represents one of the finest examples of late Naturalism in Italy. In this coastal vista, Tafuri masterfully synthesises the analytical observation of nature — inherent to his Neapolitan roots — with the international pictorial currents encountered at the Venice Biennales. The title itself, Amalfi. Impression, explicitly declares his alignment with a modern sensibility, closely attuned to the artistic explorations of so-called "international" Impressionism, where light dissolves into a vibrant and atmospheric application of colour.
