A series of violent bursts of the Libeccio a south-west wind

This large canvas depicting a violent southwestern storm — the Libeccio, a wind known to Mediterranean sailors — represents Fattori's most ambitious engagement with landscape as a subject in its own right, without the mediating presence of figures or military subjects. Painted around 1880 and held in Florence's Galleria d'Arte Moderna, the work depicts Tuscany's coastline under extreme atmospheric conditions, with the churning sea and driven sky providing a spectacle of natural force. Fattori's Macchiaioli method — building form from tonal planes rather than smooth gradation — proves well suited to the fragmented visual experience of a storm, where forms dissolve and reform in driven spray and low cloud. The choice of a purely meteorological subject aligns him with the European tradition of storm painting descended from Dutch marine art.

Fattori uses a dramatically expanded tonal range to convey storm conditions, from near-white spray and foam to dark, oppressive cloud masses. The Macchiaioli technique of bold tonal patches is pushed to its expressive limit here — forms fragment under the weight of wind and water. The palette is dominated by grey-greens, dirty whites, and turbulent darks.