Girl with a Bowl

This is a large, intentionally austere composition. Casorati depicts a pallid, absent-looking figure in the foreground of an extremely elongated perspective, with an unreal light that leaves mysterious shadows on the terracotta floor. It seems as if he is underlining the hardship of the girl’s bleak existence, as she symbolically holds an empty bowl in her hands. The enclosed outlines of the few objects present break up the space, establishing a silent scene. This is one of Casorati’s finest paintings from his early years in Turin. It reveals a controlled but intense change of style after his secessionist period. The work was shown at the Geri Boralevi Gallery in Venice for a while as part of the famous Ca’ Pesaro exhibition of dissident artists (1920).