Mommy
The painting emblematically summarizes the life study of nature, work and man, conducted by the painter in the period of intense and punctual training in the early years. Inspired by a genre subject of daily rural life, it represents a sparkling lawn under the bright sunlight, on which the figures of girls with children stand out clearly, in vibrant backlighting. Even the background, in an articulated spatial structure marked by tree trunks, and the closure of the field with a high wall on the right side lead back to the many real-life sketches made around the Pellizza house during 1890-91. The background is occupied by episodes of rural work; in the foreground dominates the scene, certainly of the genre but immune to any sketches, of the girls who act as mothers to their siblings, arranged according to a pyramidal composition. The apparent simplicity of the theme gives way to a skilful construction of the image, so much so as to earn the painter his first important awards: the gold medal and critical acclaim at the Italian-American exhibition in Genoa in 1892. Sold in Russia in 1898, the canvas reappears in a 1980 London auction.
(source: Pellizza da Volpedo: General Catalog, edited by Aurora Scotti, Milan, 1986 file 756)
