The painting is part of the period in which the artist undertakes a decisive change in his career, when, moving away from figurative painting, he begins to experiment with an abstract geometric style that leads to the birth of a personal vocabulary of shapes, such as the typical irregular comb or fork.

“It might seem contradictory, for me, to accept to superimpose a theme given to the order of research (apparently isolated) that I had been pursuing for a year: the theme" work ". The contradiction was only external, and the theme, on the contrary, fell opportune for my fundamental intuition. Not the myth, but the very essence of the work. However, I must point out that every verbal translation is by its nature improper and generic. And I would have almost refused to do it, had it not been necessary for me to declare this: it will not have been one of the least significant profits in our troubled years that we have come, slowly, but adequately, to tighten that nucleus in the most fierce and ineffable graphic sentiment. that was intended and perhaps promised to our design processes ". (C. Capogrossi, 1950)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museum Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

De Chirico takes up here a subject of classical mythology. Vulcan, god of fire, is depicted in his forge together with his helpers, intent on forging weapons for the gods and heroes. The plastic nudity of the violently chiaroscuro bodies is striking.

“In my painting I tried to stick to the classic systems of composition and chiaroscuro. I was mainly inspired by Rubens and Velasquez, trying to concentrate the greatest light in the center of the painting and to balance the movements of the characters and the lines of the composition in order to form a harmonious and monumental whole at the same time. I also looked for the preciousness of the material; that is, in addition to the intrinsic quality due to the kind of oil-resinous substances used, also those particular characteristics of transparency, internal luminosity, of mixture units, which have always been the prerogative of the great ancient painters and of which today even the memory has been lost . It is only in this way that painting can be brought back to the level of «true art» ”. (G. de Chirico, 1949)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museum Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

The artist represents two masons engaged in the construction of a house, testifying to the importance of work as a means for reconstruction after the tragic period of the Second World War.

“Starting my work, I immediately felt that to create the subject as I was depicting it, I had to rely more on the imagination than on the model. According to my intention, the two figures were to give the general movement of the composition that dynamism of the masses that the very content of the subject suggested to me; that is, representation, action and attitude. As for the constructive side, it immediately seemed necessary to place the two figures on the diagonal, which is the angle that could best express the gravitation of the bodies without losing the natural clarity, because I think that this also has value in the work of art. All this, of course, must be understood as aimed at reaching "the humanity of the subject". (C. Carrà, 1949)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

Guttuso through the representation of men and women protagonists of everyday reality, launches his personal cry of denunciation towards the great social issues, as in this work with Sicilian Laborer.

“The painting in the Verzocchi collection belongs to a series of paintings I made in 1948 and 1949, in which I tried to know and express some aspects of the life and struggles of the southern laborers. Of this reality I try to express the entire movement, the energies, the development. In this sense my current work is carried out. Beyond (if possible) the separate discourses of content and form, content and subject, subject and language. Speeches that increasingly appear to me to be devoid of common sense ”. (R. Guttuso, 1949)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

Inside Palazzo Romagnoli there is a precious collection donated by Ada and Arturo Righini dedicated to the work of Giorgio Morandi, consisting of three paintings and six etchings. "Flowerpot. Il Papavero ”represents one of the highest chapters of the“ last Morandi ”, with incredible synthesis points in terms of volume and brightness. Here Morandi's painting is now lean and the sign is thin, almost graphic. The canvas appears scratched, and the color ranges are reduced.

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

In Depero's work, harshness, energy and a metallic abstractness are captured. In the years in which he made this work, Depero's style seems to be surrounded by a magical aura, on the border between futurism and magical realism, characterized by a great attention to design and to the liveliness and brilliance of colors.

“Two symbols of work: heavy, inside firelights, between bombs and metal perspectives the first; the second is aerial, almost magical (woman attentive to the loom, under an emerald light). In addition to illustrating two contrasting signs, I wanted to underline the preferred intentions: "style" and "character". Intent that should essentially interest the artist. Design, color, shape are technical elements; after them "style" and "character". Reality is matter, abstraction. That is: theme or subject, understood, interpreted, stylized and expressed with intelligence and genius; with brain and mood, as Verzocchi rightly specified ”. (F. Depero, 1949)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

The painting was donated by the author to the "Cenacolo Artistico Forlivese", an association founded in 1920 by the painter Giovanni Marchini. The decomposition of the figures, the interpretation of the volumes, the diffraction of the light sources and even more the sense of restlessness and excitement denounce the pure futurist matrix of this splendid group portrait by Giacomo Balla.

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

Emilio Vedova's art is abstract and apparently far from the "real signifier." In this direction the work Interno di Fabbrica is significant, where the schematism and the tangle of solids and voids, of black and white masses refer not so much to the place physical, but to the mental place, to the social confusion that revolves around the industrial system (D'Amico, 2011).

“How to find words that are understandable to everyone, to explain that preliminary state, which almost approaches clairvoyance, in which the first warning of an image is born? Commenting on a painting is the task of the critic; an artist expresses himself best in form and color, and it is through shapes and colors that he sees the inner life of things. There is a geometric sensitivity as well as an organic one. Therefore one can vibrate as much in front of a naked as in front of a machine. Each object can be a reason for discovery and a source of emotion. Certain constructivist painting must be understood not as a simple mechanistic illustration, but rather as the intense and emotional reaction in front of a machine, experienced by the artist with a specific sense of geometric form ”. (E. Vedova, 1949-1950)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

The work was donated to the city of Forlì by Raniero Paulucci di Calboli in 1931, together with six other sculptures by the same author. The Mask of Pain was the first work created by Wildt after the serious existential crisis that hit him in 1906 and which ended only three years later. The three crosses engraved on the bottom plate allude to these three years of pain. The deeply sunken face, with empty eye sockets and half-open mouth, expresses pure despair.

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì

Sironi's work was one of the most appreciated by Verzocchi and critics. The artist has expressed his poetics in a masterly way, creating a composition with three compartments with balanced weights and played on an earthy chromatic range that symbolically refers to the clay of the brick that the man in the upper left is working (Marullo, 2003 ).

“I am asked for a comment to… myself. In my painting, everything seems clear enough to me even if a certain logic of this representation is not usual. Translate my painting into critical terms? This is an all-Italian evil. The critic pretends to take a painting, put it in an alembic, heat it, manipulate it, and make a compound often rotten green or livid purple. The whole, placed in the bottle, in a row with others on a shelf, is the painting. Just drink from the bottle and the painting is seen and enjoyed. This will be useful to many, but it does not appeal to certain painters who cannot appreciate synthetic products and lies in place of the flesh and bones of which they are made ”. (M. Sironi, 1949-1950)

Texts: Lorenza Montanari, Martina Neri - Museums Unit of the Municipality of Forlì