The painting was presented at the “Promotrice torinese” exhibition of 1875, then it was purchased by the nobleman Roberto Levi of Reggio and, later, donated to the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.
Painted just a year before Fontanesi departed for Japan to introduce Western oil techniques to the Meiji era, his "The Loneliness" (La Solitudine, 1875) is a central part of a thematic research- the motif of a young girl immersed in the silence of nature- that Fontanesi had pursued since the 1860s in several works. This particular canvas is a Romantic depiction of atmospheric and psychological solitude, acting as a creative bridge between the rustic realism of the French Barbizon school and the emotional dawn of European Symbolism.
The painting features a solitary young peasant woman sitting at the center of the canvas, her figure hunched over and entirely enveloped by the vastness of the surrounding landscape. Fontanesi rejects the bright, clear palettes popularized by the Impressionists of his era; instead, he plunges the scene into a moody, melancholic twilight. Gnarled, skeletal tree trunks stretch violently into a heavy, clouded sky, casting long, dramatic shadows across the earthy ground.
It is almost as if Fontanesi poured his own nomadic, solitary heart into these brushstrokes. One can almost feel the texture of his grief, his quiet resilience, and his profound reverence for the stillness of the earth. "La Solitudine" is a sanctuary for the weary, and a reminder that there is a sacred, universal dignity in loneliness, and that even in our deepest isolation, we are somehow connected to the ancient, silent rhythm of the universe around us.
"The Loneliness" painted by Fontanesi exemplies the beauty of solitude. Nature, in its melancholic state, is romanticised in this work. The painting invokes the human emotions of grief and introspection through its serene yet somber landscape.
