Leonardo Roda (Racconigi, 1868 – Turin, 1933), At the End of the Day

Leonardo Roda (Racconigi, 1868 – Turin, 1933) At the End of the Day Oil on canvas, 120 x 170 cm With frame, 151 x 201 cm Signed lower right: “L.Roda” The majestic canvas under examination should be included in the prolific production of the Piedmontese painter Leonardo Roda (Racconigi, 1868- Turin, 1933), as evidenced by the signature affixed in the lower right corner, known primarily for his rural and mountain landscapes. Born in Racconigi, in the province of Cuneo, Roda was mostly self-taught, despite a period in Turin at the studio of the artist and writer Marco Calderini (1850 – 1941), where, following the example of his master, he developed a pictorial style aimed at capturing the beauty and serenity of nature. His works, in fact, often depicted vast landscapes and scenes of rural life, with farmers working in the fields or quiet villages nestled among the hills. Roda masterfully captured the grandeur of the snow-capped peaks, the lush valleys, and the play of light and shadow on the rocky walls. He regularly exhibited his works in major Italian cities such as Milan, Turin, Genoa, and Florence, participating in various exhibitions, including the Promotrici in Turin and the annual exhibitions at the Circolo degli Artisti until 1925, thus gaining the appreciation of the public and critics. His style, while remaining faithful to the landscape tradition, showed a modern sensibility in the brushwork and the use of color. A passionate mountaineer and botanist, he often stayed in Valtournanche, in the Aosta Valley, bringing back on canvas the most characteristic views of the valley, in particular painting the Matterhorn in every declination of period and light, executing numerous versions with slight variations both in large format and as sketches with fresh, rapid, and elegant strokes. A great friend of the Ligurian writer and journalist Edmondo De Amicis (1846 – 1908), who commemorated him in the magazine “Aosta” of the provincial administration of the valley, he often traveled along the Ligurian Riviera, which he traversed from east to west, often stopping in his beloved Bordighera, and reaching the French Riviera (Fra Celle e Albisola, 1899, Costa Azzurra, 1907). Today his works are kept in important Italian collections, such as Preludio d’Inverno, previously owned by the Istituto Bancario Italiano, now kept in the art collections of the Fondazione Cariplo and another painting at the Museo Gaffoglio in Rapallo. He died in Turin in 1933. The canvas presented here, titled At the End of the Day, which shows a group of farmers on horseback intent on returning home after a hard day's work in the fields while in the background rise the smoking chimneys symbol of the new industrialized city that advances, can be compared iconographically and ideologically with Il Quarto Stato by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (1901, Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan), thus representing a true social and political manifesto, an icon of the peasant and working-class condition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Italy at the turn of the two centuries was, in fact, a country undergoing profound social and economic transformations. Industrialization, although still limited to some areas, had created an urban proletariat in often miserable conditions, with exhausting working hours and low wages. At the same time, in the countryside, masses of peasants struggled against poverty and large estates, while socialist and anarchist ideas spread rapidly, fueling strikes and demands for better living conditions and recognition of workers' rights. Roda, as well as Pelizza da Volpedo, deeply sensitive to the social issues of his time and influenced by socialist thought, felt the urgency to represent this nascent political and social force within this canvas, a testimony of an emerging new class of conscious workers. The composition of the painting is powerful and symbolic: the compact group of men and women advancing decisively on horseback towards the viewer is flooded with a sunset light that symbolizes hope for a future of redemption. The faces are serious and determined, but not aggressive; there are no weapons or signs of violence, but only the strength of numbers and the awareness of a rediscovered unity. From a formal point of view, his works fall within the verist current, demonstrating a great commitment to representing the world in an authentic and non-idealized way through full-bodied and rapid brushstrokes: even in his lyrical interpretation of the landscape, Roda strives to render the concreteness of the figures of the proletariat, free from any rhetoric, the materiality of the earth and the truthfulness of the light. Remembered mostly as a landscape painter, this work reveals a deep and rooted link of the artist with the Italian territory, as well as a sincere observation of the truth and a present social sensitivity that make, in fact, the canvas a rare testimony of the imminent industrialization.