The Golden Age

The same sentimental and anti-naturalistic ferments had, in a different way, stimulated the luminous intensity of the Milanese Scapigliati, to whom Rosso was connected. If in the Concierge, a witty woman of the people from Porta Vercellina, the cut of the clean, decisive planes and the vigorous but summary sketching of the surfaces define the cultural sphere from which Rosso started out, already in the family group of a few years later the subtle and disquieting softness of the transitions of light and the dazzling expressive essentiality mark the master's full maturity. The sure stroke of the thumb disposes the light in a mobility as fleeting as it is dynamic, assisted by the yielding fluidity of the wax (this was to be Rosso's material par excellence: bronze would always somewhat mortify his images).