The tendrils of the feast

Luigi Nono was an Italian painter associated with the Venetian realistic tradition who documented the social life of the city's working classes and poor with genuine sympathy. The Tendrils of the Feast from 1887, at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, depicts a scene that combines celebration with the social reality of those who are included in or excluded from community festivities. Nono brought to such subjects both technical skill and a naturalist commitment to unvarnished social observation. The Argentine National Museum's acquisition reflects the strong Italian-Argentine cultural connection through nineteenth-century immigration.

Nono renders the scene with the Venetian naturalist tradition's combination of careful figure observation and attention to atmospheric light. His palette is warm in the Italian manner, the scene's social dynamics captured through the specific postures and expressions of the figures. His handling is careful and controlled rather than Impressionist in the French sense.