watercolor, paper
5.5 x 16 cm, 17 x 24 cm (including passepartout)
signed lower right: A. Allavena
good state of conservation
Antonio Luigi ALLAVENA (Sanremo, Italy, 1877- Bordighera, Italy, 1954)
The main representative of a dynasty of Ligurian watercolorists active in Bordighera. Around 1900, he moved to Bordighera Alta, in Via Dritta 16, where he settled and created most of his works. It has been said that Luigi Allavena, like his master, his older brother Michele, is an uncompromising painter, feels art as if it were an arithmetic rhythm and wants to contain it within the limits of an unvarnished truth. The choice to relate in the most faithful way to reality rather than to a freer, more personal and more creative interpretation is the main characteristic of the painter. He feels the need to communicate with a rigorous and careful language the emotions that arise from the observation of the environment that surrounds him and highlights what he loves most with a balanced choice of framing and tools. In addition, there is a rigorous respect for perspective and a wise use of light and shadow, in which Allavena is a true master. Thus we can observe, the free and open panoramas that the seaside offers him. depicted with the rich range of tones of his watercolors.Antonio Luigi Allavena can therefore be defined as an artist who faithfully approaches the medieval motifs that abound in ancient Bordighera and the nearby French Riviera. Tourists of the time were particularly attracted by his paintings, which are currently kept in private collections in Italy and abroad.