One of the famous paintings by Giovanni Fattori created in 1866, called "la rotonda dei bagni Palmieri," is a work that belongs to the Macchiaioli movement of nineteenth-century Italian art. It depicts a scene of several women seating under a big canopy of a coastal bathing pavilion in Livorno. In contrast with numerous historical and mythological subjects, the artist chose an ordinary and contemporaneous moment. He depicted the sea, the coast, and the sky in the background while positioning the women horizontally in the composition.
The picture is extremely small, only about 12 by 35 centimeters, yet through the use of color masses, Fattori managed to create a feeling of space. He uses different colors to show contrasts. The yellow-orange canopy stands in contrast with the blue sea and sky, while the dark parts of the painting create a foreground. The figures of the women are not detailed with facial characteristics; the artist showed them through their silhouettes and clothing.
The technique is indicative of the fascination with patches of colors in representing light and realism as practiced by the Macchiaioli painters as opposed to their extensive use of modeling and academic drawing. The museum describes this work as belonging to the “Macchiaioli revolution,” and notes that it is oil on panel from 1866. The painting was later purchased by the Municipality of Florence in 1908 from Giovanni Malesci and placed in the Gallery of Modern Art in Palazzo Pitti. This work thus brings together a simple scene on the seashore with an innovative representation of light and color.
Fattori demonstrates a revolutionary rejection of academic detail, relying entirely on macchie—patches or blocks of contrasting color—to structure the composition. The seven bourgeois women are reduced to elegant, geometric silhouettes beneath a heavy awning. By juxtaposing bold tones against the horizontal bands of sea, sky, and shore, Fattori masterfully captures the stark, filtered Mediterranean light. It remains a brilliant exercise in synthetic realism, anticipating modern abstraction.
